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

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.

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!

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

Magnolia Heaven

Who doesn't love be a magnolia tree in full bloom?

The Magnolia in our garden is spectacular and makes my heart sing every day when I drive through the gate.

Magnolia branches are sensational in a vase and I've been selling pink and white branches at Cowdray Farm Shop this week . They're not from my garden though as I couldn't bear to pick them!

Seasonal Spring Flowers for Cowdray Farm Shop

There are so many incredible, beautiful, seasonal, native flowers around in the Spring.

Keeping it strictly seasonal in floristry is so easy in the Springtime and we're absolutely spoilt for choice.

Here are just a few of the fabulous home grown ingredients I've been using this week in my bunches at Cowdray Farm Shop.

Frittilaries, ranunculus, hellebores, paperwhite narcissi

Happy New Floral Year 2017

Happy New Year to you!

Thank you to everyone I worked with this year, it was a really brilliant floral year and I enjoyed every minute of it.

It was a great year for my flowers and plants at The Cowdray Farm Shop and a very successful year for events and weddings too. My clients have all been, without exception, an absolute pleasure to work with.

Thank you and H appy New Year X

Autumn Wreath

It's been another great week for our Autumn wreaths and flowers generally.

With half term happening this week and Halloween on Monday our customers seem to be entertaining at home and decorating their doors and homes to welcome in their visitors.

The wreath below is welcoming in visitors at The Cowdray Farm Shop Cafe in Midhurst this week and it's prompted people to ask us about wreath making workshops. We'll be organising wreath making workshops in early December at Cowdray Hall in Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex and if you're interested in joining us then please do get in touch.

The Abundance of Summer; Flowers and Fruit

It's been a really beautiful summer and I've been lucky enough to spend so much of it outside, arranging flowers, tending plants and watering (a lot for the potted plants that I sell at Cowdray Farm Shop) in the cool of the evening just before sunset; a magical time of day.

The summer season has been non stop this year and the event work, like the flowers, has been abundant.

For this event at Cowdray House I wanted to showcase the abundance of summer flowers and seasonal fruits and also to showcase a small selection of the huge variety of plants that I've been selling at Cowdray Farm Shop this summer; verbenas, abelias, pelargoniums, senecio, clematis, honeysuckle, crocosmia, dahlias.

A sprinkling of garden roses and a few unripe blackberries from my own woodland garden complete the look; the abundance of summer 2016.

Glorious Peonies

It's Peony season!

They're incredibly beautiful, long lasting, full of surprises and everyone adores them.

I absolutely love them and have been working my way through all of the wonderful varieties recently.

I've got an excellent range of peonies in Cowdray Farm Shop at the moment so , if you live in Midhurst, it's definitely worth a peek.

Tatler 8 Best Farm Shops in the UK

It was fabulous to see that the Cowdray Farm Shop in Midhurst was recognised as one of the 8 Best Farm Shops in the UK by Tatler.

I provide all of the flowers and plants for the Cowdray Farm Shop. You can actually see them in the photo below, which is by the super talented Kerry from Whippet Snippets.

The Cowdray Farm Shop is an incredible farm shop and well worth a visit. It's located on the beautiful Cowdray Estate, Midhurst, which is in the centre of the South Downs National Park. It's easy to find as it's located just off the A272 at Easebourne, Midhurst, in the glorious Cowdray Park.

With a superb butcher selling estate reared meat, a fabulous bakery, amazing cheese counter that sells Neal's Yard cheese (try the Stichelton!) and the freshest, seasonal flowers and plants delivered daily by my own company, the farm shop is a great asset to the local area and an excellent place to shop.

The cafe is a great place to visit, the food is always really delicious, the team are always friendly and the service is always really good. On a sunny day the patio is the best spot in town and I often meet friends and clients there for a healthy salad and a fresh 'green' juice.