10th April 2025 - A British Flower Story - by Emma Greenshaw

Our speaker was                                     

Mrs Emma Greenshaw; the inspirational owner of The Fellside Flower Company, situated in Long Marton, near Appleby-in-Westmorland.
Emma’s talk was entitled “A British Flower Story” was a fascinating presentation about the growth and development of sustainable flowers now being produced throughout the British Isles.

Around the world, life events are invariably celebrated using flowers of many varieties. Commercial enterprises have thrived in producing blooms for the public. Such flowers needed to be robust in order to withstand the picking, packing and the many miles of road or air transport in order to arrive at distant wholesale markets in pristine condition. The Netherlands and Israel emerged as global trade leaders for the cut-flower world market.

Historically, every British high street had an independent florist but then the mass production of foreign blooms became available in every supermarket and on every garage forecourt: selling at competitive prices. Therefore small independent floristry businesses have struggled to compete. Currently about 10% of flowers were being produced in the U.K., mainly seasonal spring flowers like daffodils.

With growing public awareness of sustainability, the fact that the global flower market involves huge transportation costs and the use of chemical sprays, an inspirational lady from Yorkshire intervened! Her name is Gill Hodgson MBE. She has led the way to try and alter the tastes and fashion of British customers by revolutionising the British Flower Market. She founded and organised a company called “Flowers from the Farm”.
Gill had a background hobby in floristry using mainly Dutch flowers. But she began experimenting and growing flowers such as cosmos, cornflowers, Ammi majus, love-in-a-mist and found that even grown in commercial quantities, they coped well with the British climate. The trend for using local blooms has been enhanced by the desire for a more informal style of floristry: using local leaves, herbs and seasonal blooms. This old style revival of using freshly ‘just-gathered’ flowers has allowed many enterprising farmers to diversify and grow crops of flowers!

In 2016 the “Flowers From The Farm” initiative led Emma Greenshaw to decide to begin her own career growing flowers for her local Cumberland customers, despite the unpredictable northern climate! With the support of her husband, she carved out a scheme in an adjacent field to their house. Hedges were planted, fences erected and rabbit and sheep-proofed boundaries installed. On-going woodland planting was also developed for wildlife as well as being useful as floristry foliage. So with the Sarah Raven catalogue in hand, Emma began to trial the seeds and plants for suitability in her chosen fell side field. Before long, she had to extend her beds as the demand for her flowers grew.

In 2019, Gill Hodgson decided to exhibit at Chelsea. She created a display of British grown flowers called To Market. The display of a featured a horse and cart laden with the flowers tumbling off the back of the wagon was a gold medal winner!

Emma has continued to plant more trees including crab apples, birch, hazel, and viburnum, all chosen to complement the blooms. Even an apiary has been added. No spray chemicals and pesticides are used (although docks have proved a challenge!) but as a consequence a high biodiversity has been achieved across the flower fields and woodlands, and a Barn Owl now frequently flies at dusk. Emma uses a no-dig style of cultivation with grass paths between the long flower beds.

Practically, antirrhinum, cornflowers, larkspur, calendula, and sweet peas are thriving and are proving to be easy to cut and also have a good shelf life. A move to plant perennials as well as annuals has led to Emma experimenting with astrantia, echinops, rudbeckia, scabious and verbena bonariensis. A variety of bulbs planted in November, including unusual daffodils, fritillaries, and late tulips. Emma spends much of December making winter wreaths using her own foliage and fruits.

A huge accolade and promotion for Flowers From the Farm happened when (in total secrecy) Gill was approached by the King’s Florist, Mr Shane Connelly, to ask if she could organise all of the farm flower growers across Britain to provide sufficient flowers for use at the 2023 Coronation in London. From across Scotland, the North and right across England, flowers were sent and collected for the King’s florist to be able to use exclusively British grown flowers in the celebratory displays. Shane’s wife is a church warden and this has prompted a movement throughout the Church of England to try and use sustainably grown British flowers for decorating churches for weddings and funerals.

And of course we are all responsible to trying to avoid using foam products such as ‘Oasis’ when arranging formal displays.