Harebell & Bee

Name: Harebell & Bee
Address: Lydney, GB
Telephone: +447956441392

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Harebell & Bee

Hello! I'm a Lydney-based grower of beautiful, British dried flowers.

20/06/2024

A big ‘thank you’ to everyone at who hosted a lovely open day at their peony farm on Tuesday. It was great to see the plot and meet the team who grow and sell the most amazing range of peonies!

I came home with some tips on growing peonies (Martin’s knowledge of them is astounding) and an armful of flowers to experiment with drying.
In the photos… Dayton, Candy Stripe, Carol, Myrtle Gentry, Old Faithful, Pillow Talk.

Because the weather’s been quite cool lately, I’m drying these in my potting shed which gets warmer than my usual drying room during the day. I’ll share photos again after they’ve dried. Can’t wait to see how they turn out!

By the way, Border Peonies sell to both individual customers and wholesale so if you want to send someone (or yourself) a gift of peonies or you’re a florist looking for British-grown flowers, be sure to check them out for next year’s peony season (end of May - early June) and get yourself some stunning blooms 💕 Their website is https://www.borderpeonies.co.uk

24/05/2024

This was a delicate flower crown I made for a bride to wear at her hen party over the weekend. A gift from her family and friends 💕 Her mum told me how she (the bride) used to make daisy crowns as a child, so I made sure I added a few dainty dried daisies into this one 🌸 I hope it was the loveliest of parties 💛

15/05/2024

Ranunculus Salmone… very interested to see what colour it dries to 🧡 And a handful of other colours headed to the drying room

08/05/2024

The first brilliant yellow ranunculus of the year, harvested yesterday for drying. I have a few other yummy colours coming on in shades of pastels and pinks🩷💛

These were started last December, when everything was nice and quiet in the garden. My favourite way to grow them is in crates - I can move them to wherever I want and more importantly they don’t take up valuable space in my cut flower patch in the spring while I’m waiting for the foliage to die back and lift them again for the next year 🌸

23/04/2024

A little dried bouquet I posted last week, along with one of my mini cards that had an encouraging message inside from the sender. A sweet gift to let someone know you’re thinking about them 💕

Mini bouquets can be ordered from my website, just let me know the colours you’d like… or leave it up to me to choose for you 😊

https://www.harebellandbee.co.uk/shop/p/mini-bouquet-made-to-order

22/04/2024

Made for someone who wanted a bright and fun wreath to look at when they have to do boring adult things… I hope this helps ☺️

13/03/2024

Felicity & Oliver’s beautiful wedding from last summer 🧡

They celebrated at Pauntley Court and chose dried flowers that would complement the terracotta colour of the main house - rich yellows, deep salmon shades, pale pinks and green eucalyptus.

I filled a milk churn with everlasting flowers to sit by their signing table and created miniature arrangements for the reception table. Dried mementos that they and their guests were able to take home and enjoy for years to come.

(The last photo is the only one I managed to take myself of the bouquets)

Wishing this wonderful couple all the best 💛

Photos by Hypercube Photography

06/03/2024

This joyful wreath and matching bouquet went to their new home last weekend 💛
Blue cornflowers, golden rudbeckia, lots of strawflowers and clouds of statice here and there. May they bring you much happiness Kamie Wood!

29/02/2024

Dried flowers for Katy & Adam’s wedding on a beautiful spring day last June at Clearwell Castle ✨

They loved the idea of warm peach coloured flowers that would really stand out against the attendants’ sage green dresses and grey suits. The flower girls carried willow wands adorned with everlastings and ribbons.

The gorgeous dried dahlias in the bouquets and buttonholes were supplied by JustDahlias and were absolutely the perfect colours 🧡

📷 Photos 1, 3 and 5 by David Seadon

29/02/2024

27/02/2024

Looking for a gift or maybe some dried flowers to create your own everlasting bouquet? My shop has bouquets that are ready to ship now (or contact me for a bespoke design) including some that are absolutely filled with stems of gently scented lavender 💜

I’m also offering bunches of single varieties like pink paper daisies, darling white ammobium and pale yellow / peach strawflowers. These look lovely in a vase on their own or combined with other flowers 🌸

https://www.harebellandbee.co.uk/shop

Every single stem was lovingly grown and dried here in the Forest of Dean and as always, using methods that protect and nurture our wildlife friends 🐝

21/02/2024

An everlasting wreath with all the colours 🧡🩷💛💙 Created for

17/02/2024

Had a lovely afternoon talking about dried flowers with the members of the Monmouth Flower Society on Wednesday. My demo was this little meadow display (thanks for the inspiration BrackenandFleur 💕)
I was pretty nervous having not done any public speaking for a while but the ladies were so kind and welcoming and it seemed to go ok in the end. And afterward I was really pleased to hear people say they were inspired to try growing and drying some of their own flowers ☺️🌸

10/02/2024

✨Shop update!✨

A quick note to let you know I’ve just finished adding some lovely dried flower bouquets to my shop. Choose from Blue & White, Pretty Purples, or gently scented lavender bouquets in 2 sizes (the pink bouquet in the last photos has already sold, but if you’re interested in a similar one, please message me) 🌸

https://www.harebellandbee.co.uk/shop

Standard shipping for all the large bouquets is £5 (£3 for the small lavender one) though it’s free if you spend £50 or more (use code SHIPPING50 at checkout). Royal Mail 24h is also available if you’d like something to arrive in time for Valentines Day ☺️

All these lovely flowers, grasses and seed heads are lovingly grown and dried by me or one of my fellow local growers 💚

15/01/2024

Did you know you can order sweet little dried flower hoops like this one from my website? Each one is made-to-order so you can choose your favourite colour (or colours) 💛💜🩷🩵 Tap on the photo or follow the link in bio to visit my shop and find out more 🌸

09/01/2024

These were some sweet little hoops made for the flower girls in an autumn wedding. Dried flower keepsakes to remember the day 🧡

05/01/2024

A gift made for a friend 🩵
Perhaps to hang by a window to catch the breeze

Address

Lydney

Telephone

+447956441392

Website

https://www.harebellandbee.co.uk/

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Videos

Honeybee and strawflower

It was on a sunny September day that I was in the garden collecting flowers for drying, when I noticed a honeybee on a strawflower, foraging for nectar around the outside of the flower head - have a look at the video below. Did you know that the colourful, papery displays of strawflowers aren’t petals? They’re called ‘bracts’ and are modified leaves that protect the maturing flowers and help to attract pollinators, like this honeybee. This little bee is collecting from extrafloral nectaries - nectar-producing glands that aren’t part of the flowers - located at the bases of the bracts. The tiny, yellow reproductive flowers of a strawflower are located in the very centre of the bracts, and you can see them once a strawflower head opens completely - I'll add photos of those separately. The bee isn’t actually doing any pollinating at this point, so the nectar is a free gift! Hopefully she’ll remember this food source and return once the flowers open to do a bit of pollinating.

I wanted to share a short video of how our little urban meadow looks at this time of year, when the grass isn’t yet too long and it’s full of buttercups. (I’m reposting this because I didn’t realise my video was cropped in the original and I like the full size one better😊) This area takes up perhaps 1/3 of the total garden. It’s sloped and southern-facing but once the nearby maple trees leaf out in spring, it ends up being in shade for much of the day. Two years ago (when we moved in) it was a grassy lawn that the previous homeowner had maintained with regular mowing. I left everything to grow in the first spring and summer and was able to find pignut, cuckoo flower, primroses, buttercups, cow parsley, fox-and-cubs and clover (I know I’m missing a few). In the years since, I’ve added oxeye daisies, yarrow, cuckoo flower, scabiosa, meadowsweet, wild carrot, geranium, birdsfoot trefoil, and knapweed along with extra cuckoo flower, clover, cow parsley and buttercups (and some others I can’t remember at the moment). This year I’m planning to introduce more shade tolerant flowers including foxgloves (any other suggestions of shade loving wildflowers are welcome!) I really love our little meadow - I get so much pleasure from walking through it, especially when the insects are buzzing through the flowers. And it’s one less area to mow!

Shortcuts

Beautiful, seasonal flowers grown in Gloucestershire

One of the things I love most about flowers is how they often bring excitement and expectation along with the changing of the seasons. I’m certain this feeling is a result of having spent the first twenty-odd years of my life in a part of America where the seasons differed dramatically from one to the next. My harbingers of spring were always the crocuses, peeking through the snow and reassuring me that winter would soon be over. I can also remember exploring the woods in springtime for the native Mayapple plant which meant the school holidays were right around the corner. And then there was summer, which was baking hot and humid to boot, yet it was plentiful and delicious, giving us sugary sweet corn, juicy blackberries, colourful zinnias and sunflowers, and fields of nodding Queen-Ann’s-Lace.

Flowers that grow with the seasons are flowers that are kinder to the environment, and looking after nature is as important to me as growing gorgeous flowers. I started Harebell & Bee because I wanted to bring a little floral beauty into the lives of others through sustainably-grown flowers. Even though my gardens might not produce flowers all year long, the flowers that do bloom there are all the more special for the few weeks or months that we get to enjoy them.

I’m Shanna, the flower grower, floral designer, wildlife cheerleader and business owner at Harebell & Bee. I grow a variety of flowers to harvest from April through October in my own garden near the centre of Lydney in Gloucestershire, by the beautiful Forest of Dean and Wye Valley. I love straight-from-the-garden bouquets and enjoy creating natural-looking arrangements using both fresh and dried flowers, as well as experimenting with foraged natural materials I find in the wilder areas of my garden.