Local Flower Deliveries Midhurst

I hope you’re all doing okay?

It’s been a difficult year hasn’t it?

I just wanted to let you know that we are still delivering flowers locally within 15 miles of Midhurst, West Sussex on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays each week.

We deliver to doorsteps so its all very safe and hands free and the flowers will be delivered in a flower jar so there’s no wasteful packaging.

We can drop flowers each week, every 2 weeks or monthly and you’ll get a flower jar with the first delivery and then subsequent deliveries will arrive without packaging perfectly designed to drop straight into your chosen size flower jar.

We send an invoice with a link to pay by credit or debit card or Bags so that its easy for you.

Do call or email if you’d like to place an order. or you can book online here and just a gentle reminder that it’s Valentines Day on Sunday 14th Feb and Mothering Sunday on 14th March so we’re open for pre-orders now.

Best wishes

Karen

This Floral Life 2019 Weddings and Events

I decided to post this summary of a few of our weddings and events from last year for the people who don’t follow us on Instagram where we originally posted this after Christmas.

It’s always great to review the year and It’s been lovely looking back on some of the events and weddings we waved our floral wand over in 2019.

It was a fun year and it was wonderful to have created so many events without using any plastic floral foam or single use plastics. Sustainability is an overused but necessary word these days and it actually lays at the heart of our business. We’ve just come through the hottest decade on record and it’s never been more important to do everything we can to ensure that we protect the planet from further decline.

We’ve had outr electric van for 3 years now and it really helps to keep us on track on this important journey. We work locally and the majority of our work is within a very small radius of where we live.

We grow flowers using organic methods and pick foliage from our gardens and the surrounding area of woodlands and use plants where we can so that we can replant them. We de-rigg all of our own jobs and we we like our clients to take home the flowers we make so we seldom have green waste to collect from our events but when we do then we compost it ourselves and put it back into the soil.

We’re not perfect but we are committed to doing everything we can and in doing so it becomes second nature and a way of life.

Sustainable, natural floristry for events and weddings

Sussex Life and Wreath Workshop

This lovely article appeared in the Dec Edition of Sussex life magazine.
It’s about Christmas wreaths with tips on how to make your own with foliage from your garden.

If you’d like to make your own wreath with a great selection of materials, a glass of Nyetimber and mince pies then it’s not too late to book a place on one of our wreath workshops at Cowdray Hall this year. There are still a few places left on our afternoon workshop at Cowdray Hall on Thursday 5th December. Book online at www.cowdray.co.uk

I hope you can make it and if so I look forward to meeting you.

If you can’t attend the workshop but would like to buy a wreath then please get in touch as we are taking orders for Dec through to Christmas. We no longer sell our wreaths and flowers through the Cowdray Farm shop as we operate a local, weekly delivery service by electric van from our busy flower studio in Midhurst.

Pink and White Summer Wedding at Cowdray House

This was a really lovely wedding at Cowdray House at the beginning of August.

It was a seasonal pink and white wedding with lots of gorgeous garden roses and hydrangeas and all made without floral foam just using simple and sustainable mechanics of chicken wire and water - yes even the fireplace flowers!

Buck Hall Banqueting tables for 150

Ceremony Flowers at Cowdray House

Hall flowers of seasonal hydrangea and beech

Fireplace flowers made without floral foam

Downton Abbey Inspired Dinner at Cowdray House

What a pleasure it was working with Caper and Berry at Cowdray House, Cowdray Estate to create this fabulous Downton Abbey inspired gala dinner for a really lovely clients’ 50th Birthday Party last week.

We used garden roses, sweet peas, peonies, jasmine and garden clematis along with an abundance of candles with our golden candelabra and lead crystal candelabra, lead crystal tea light holders and glass candlesticks.

Buck Hall is such a brilliant place for a gala white tie dinner!

Downton Abbey Inspired Dinner

Downton Abbey Inspired Dinner 

English Garden Flowers

English garden flowers  

Tatler Best Wedding Venues in the UK

Tatler have listed Cowdray House as on of their top 11 wedding venues in the UK and one of our weddings from 2016 has been used in the feature photograph.

The photo is by the very talented Nadine Van Biljon

Click here to read the article on Tatler

A Spectacular Autumnal Dinner at Cowdray House with British Flowers

This autumnal dinner at Cowdray House, Cowdray Estate was incredible. Hosted by the fabulous team at Caper and Berry the event was for the leading lights in the wedding and event planning industry, who stayed at Cowdray House overnight.

We used all British grown chrysanthemums from Hampshire and believe me these are nothing like the contrived chrysanthemums you usually find in supermarkets and garages. The colours were truly amazing and they were wayward and natural. We foraged bracken and browning ferns from The Cowdray Estate and used them to dress the candelabra and the fireplace. The result was really beautiful and the planners loved it.

I actually attended the event and the food and service by the incredible team at Caper and Berry was wonderful.

These wonderful photographs of the event are by the super talented Louise Adby

What a magical evening in Midhurst!

Cowdray House Cutting Garden

We are delighted to say that we now have a cutting garden at Cowdray House.

In keeping with our company ethos we don’t use any chemicals, weed killers or sprays and all of our flowers are grown naturally. We grow through a fabulous bio-degradable matting that’s made in the UK and not made of plastic as most are.

A short 5 minute hop from our studio and Home in Midhurst, West Sussex , it’s ideally placed on the Cowdray Estate to enable us to pick flowers and arrange them in our bunches for the Cowdray Farm Shop for the same morning.

We also provide weekly flowers for Cowdray House, the Cowdray Farm Shop Cafe and the Cowdray Golf Club  where we’ll be adding some our our own flowers into the arrangements that we make.

Our weddings and events business will benefit hugely from our cutting garden and we also intend to offer some courses on sustainable flower arranging later in the year at Cowdray House. Do sign up to our newsletter if you’d like to be kept informed about dates.

Dahlia beds at our Cowdray House Cutting Garden

Dinner plate dahalias!

Fabulous burgundy dahlia

Tips on Decorating your House for Easter In The Daily Telegraph

Anna Tyzack, Senior Lifestyle Editor at The Daily Telegraph, interviewed me, as the Cowdray Estate florist,  this week for a fun and informative article on decorating your house for Easter.

They'll be lots of gorgeous Easter flowers, wreaths, bulbs planters and flowering branches available to buy from Cowdray Farm Shop on the Cowdray Estate from this week when Spring returns.

Flowers for Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday, or the week of Mothering Sunday, is always such a lovely week at This Floral Life. 

It marks the beginning of Spring for me and it’s a mere 3 weeks to Easter; another favourite flowery festival of mine. 

This year was incredible. It was super busy all week for flowers and plants and then at the weekend we were re-stocking Cowdray Farm Shop every hour in between our other local deliveries. 

I had a hunch that it was going to be a much busier Mothering Sunday week than usual for flowers and plants and I think people needed some Spring cheer after the harsh winter.  

Eco Flower Deliveries Midhurst West Sussex

It’s the first day of Spring and it’s hard to believe it but ‘Leckie’, our all electric van, is covered in snow.

We’ve had ‘Leckie’ since August and we absolutely love him. He fits perfectly with our company values and since we bought ‘Leckie’ he’s really helping us to achieve our goals of running a sustainable, eco friendly business. We can deliver flowers, plants and bespoke arrangements within a 20 mile radius of Midhurst so do call if you’d like to book a delivery as we always have a gorgeous range of seasonal flowers and plants in stock as we do daily deliveries to the Cowdray Farm Shop (literally 5 minutes from our studio) where we supply all of the flowers and plants.

We no longer use floral foam in any of our work as we’ve worked hard to achieve amazing floral displays without using this non biodegradable, single use, plastic.

This year we’ll be growing more of our own flowers and we’ll also be running some flower courses for anyone who is interested in learning how to create glorious, seasonal, eco friendly arrangements. 

Sign up to our newsletter on our home page if you’d like to be kept informed. 

A Christmas Dinner at Cowdray House

This was a very special dinner at Cowdray House in December. 

It was glamorous, festive and fun and in addition to providing the flowers and dressing the Buck Hall for Christmas I actually went to the dinner. 

The food was absolutely sublime and provided by the fabulous Caper and Berry. What a great evening it was! 

Thank you to Cowdray Estate for letting me post these lovely photos of the event taken by a Chris Orange Photography. 

Audi A8 Launch at Cowdray House

Well, we’ve been flat out again since the last event I posted so I’m trying to play catch up again!

This event was very special as it was a dinner for motoring journalists and VIP’s to celebrate the launch of the new Audi A8 in the UK.

We created a large central autumnal tree and decorated the huge fireplace with a garland of autumn leaves and berries. The tables formed a cross shape and were filled with a runner of autumnal flowers, hips and foliage with decorated candelabra to co-ordinate.

I hope you like the photos! 

Winter White Wedding at Cowdray House

Amy and Andrew married at Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex on November 18th 2017.

Candlelight was really important to Amy and Andrew and over 300 candles were used to create this fabulous romantic wedding.  

The ceremony took place in the cathedral like space of Buck Hall and we decorated the huge fireplace with ivy, seasonal greenery and white hydrangea heads. Candles were used on top of the fireplace, in the fireplace and lining the aisle; it looked absolutely stunning and so did the gorgeous Amy.

We stayed on site to turn the room around for the dinner with the caterers, Caper and Berry. The guests retired to the drawing room for canapés and champagne and within an hour the room was transformed with candleabra, white hydrangeas and hundreds of candles along the 108 foot of banqueting tables.

I can’t wait to see the official photos by Hajie as mine came out a little pink for some reason when it actually didn’t look pink!

Buck Hall dressed for the Wedding ceremony

Buck Hall dressed for the wedding dinner 

Macaron tower by Sylvia’s Kitchen

Autumn Dinner at Cowdray House

I really enjoyed creating the house and table flowers for this very special dinner at Cowdray House in October. It's an amazing time of year to be a florist as there is such wonderful material to work with and bringing the outside in as the days grow shorter is always appreciated by the guests.

I designed this dinner to come alive after dark when the candles were lit to create a real 'wow' factor. I used layers of candlelight that would illuminate the flowers, seedheads and grasses and although I didn't manage to photograph the table when the candles are lit I have seen photos that were taken that night; it really did look gorgeous and the feedback after the dinner was fabulous.

The Dining Room at Cowdray House

Hall Flowers at Cowdray House

The dining table flowers

Autumn Heather Wreaths

Autumn wreaths are now incredibly popular and this week we've been making lots of gorgeous autumnal heather wreaths for orders. Our red and orange wreaths decorated with seasonal foliage, rose hips, physalis and seed heads are still popular but the demand for our pink, red and chocolate wreaths, inspired by the heather woods where I live in Midhurst, West Sussex, has been very high indeed. We've also been making some beautiful dried wreaths which will last throughout the year. I love making the dried wreaths and they look beautiful propped on the mantelpiece or hanging on doors around the house.

This will be the last week for our autumn wreaths as we've been working on our Christmas collection which we'll launch at Cowdray Farm Shop on Saturday 2nd December when they're holding their Christmas tasting day. 

If you'd like to order a wreath for collection or delivery do get in touch!

Summer Polo Event at Cowdray House

Last Friday I had the pleasure of providing the flowers for a summer polo event at Cowdray House on Cowdray Estate.

Hosted by Cowdray Polo Club with catering by Caper and Berry there were canapés on the lawn followed by a dinner in the dining room of cowdray House.

I brought in some wonderful rhodendendrons from the gardens of Cowdray House and decorated the tables with seasonal peonies, aquilegia, hellebores, lilac to name a few of the ingredients. 

Its always a pleasure working at the fabulous Cowdray House! 

Brainwave Charity Clay Shoot at Cowdray House

The annual fund raising event for the Brainwave charity took place at Cowdray House last week and I provided the seasonal flowers for the delicious lunch which was provided by the wonderful Jacaranda Catering with fabulous wine provided by Nyetimber.

Spring Wedding at Cowdray House

As the preferred florist at the glorious Cowdray House in Midhurst West Sussex, we know this venue rather well and can wholeheartedly recommend you to book your wedding or event there; its a really wonderful house in an incredibly beautiful location and you won't be disappointed.

Last week we provided the flowers for Sally and Tom's fabulous wedding at Cowdray House. 

The theme was wild wood with plenty of greens and branches with new shoots emerging. We used seasonal flowers in whites, ivory and champagne with touches of blue. The flowers included anemones, frittilaria, ranunculus, jonquils, hellebores, bluebells and spirea.

We decorated the huge fireplace in Buck hall with branches of greenery, with a sprinkling of white flowers. This is where the wedding ceremony took place and the aisle was lined with candles in glass.

After the ceremony, the wedding party and guests had canapés and champagne in the gardens and other rooms of the house whilst Jacaranda Catering and our team laid out the banqueting tables for the dinner. We all achieved a very quick turnaround and the room was ready in just over an hour.

Flowers for Mothering Sunday at Cowdray Farm Shop

What a lovely, sunny weekend it's been for a Mothering Sunday.

I provide all of the flowers and plants for the award winning Cowdray Farm Shop on the beautiful Cowdray Estate in Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex and with Mothering Sunday and the exceptional weather this weekend it's been a very flowery and busy week,.

Here are a few photos of this weekend's bouquets, planters and plants.  

Lilac, ranunculus, scented narcissi and anemones

Lilac, ranunculus, astrantia, forget-me-nots and clematis

Ranunculus, lilac, scented narcissi and forget-me-nots

Mimosa

Zinc Muscari planters

Scented narcissi, ranunculus, anemones