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flower grower and florist in Amersham

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Based in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, I provide flowers to the local area including Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Middlesex and North-West London.

Want to know more? Please contact me on:

Sarah Benson

+44 07905 129108

sarah@bloomcarousel.com

or be blooming social with me @bloomcarousel

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Recent Posts

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Today’s prompt for #flowerfarmerama is “my top tip for using my flowers this year.” Well, at the risk of putting myself out of business, my top tip for everyone is try growing your own!!! There are some hardy and half-hardy annual seeds which are cheap to buy and super easy to grow - once the soil warms up (say April/May time), you simply scatter the seeds, give them a loose cover with soil and a water, and they’ll be up in no time. Nigella, cornflowers, calendula, ammi, and with a little more tlc, cosmos and sunflowers, will all grow if direct sown with really minimal effort. Nasturtiums are also brilliant if you just want some bright colour in your beds. And the best thing? No slug pellets or pesticides required. If it’s mega-rainy, you might lose some.....but just think of it that you are feeding the hedgehog who will eat the slug that has eaten your sunflower 🦔 🐌🌻. #foodchain. And we all love hedgehogs 😘💕🦔. Fancy something abit more glamorous? Try some flamboyant dahlias! Now, the slugs really do like these, so I tend to grow them from the tubers in a pot first, then when they are big enough to withstand abit of nibbling (say 10-12” tall and nice and bushy), I plant them out where they will grow some super blooms come August/September. #Simples #britishflowers #locallygrown #nochemicals #nopesticides #organicgrowing #easypeasy #ecoflorist #diy #bebrave #haveago #amersham #buckinghamshireflorist #chilterns A rather belated Day 23 of #flowerfarmerama which is to show some of my autumn blooms. In the world of British flower farming, you’re never really quite sure what autumn is, because an early frost can rapidly bring your entire season to an end when the dahlias get wiped out! This has happened to me for the last two years! 😢 So here’s some unscathed late September flowers captured before the frosts - I hope these make you smile on this grim January day 🙂. The first image is a completely mad and colourful autumn arrangement from when I first started out my flower farming journey - I still love this one 💕. Then I have included a video of some blooms which went out for a super fun wedding last autumn - there’s a real mix here of dahlias, cosmos, ammi, scabious, sea lavender, salvia, sunflowers, zinnias....see what else you can spot! Argh!! Looking at this just makes me want the sun again.....🌞 #herecomesthesun #britishflowers #happyflowers #dailydahlia #autumnblooms #ecoflorist #nopesticides #nochemicals #locallygrown #amersham #buckinghamshireflorist #flowerfarmerama (belated) Day 22 🤣🤣🤣 is show is some of your #summer blooms 🌸. That’s even harder than choosing flowers for Spring!! Anyway, here’s a selection of my favourites and check out the #bee in last picture - he’s clearly loving all the pollen on the plot 🐝#nopesticides #nochemicals #britishflowers #flowersfromthefarm #summerflowers #justbuzzin #buzz #ecoflorist #hydrangea #buckinghamshireflorist #amersham Well, I’ve got rather behind on my #flowerfarmerama this week!!!! A few other things have gotten in the way. Anyway, I shall attempt to catchup somewhat as there were some rather nice prompts this week which have us showing some of the best of our blooms from each of the seasons. The first season is Spring - I struggled to choose a favourite so I have put a few in. I do particularly like this first picture though which is just full of colour and shows that you can have fab flowers at any time of year. #nofloralfoam in this arrangement - it’s in a vintage #ianthe rosebowl which I got on eBay. You can pick these up on eBay and lots of a vintage/charity shops and then you feel really posh and you can pretend you live in Downton Abbey. #flowerfarmerama #springflowers #seasonalflowers #britishflowers #grownnotflown #ecoflorist #rosebowl #vintagestyle #downtonabbey #amersham #chilterns #buckinghamshireflorist #Flowerfarmerama Day 19 asks ‘what is your favourite thing about flower farming?’ Well, there’s obviously lots of things which are fab about it, or else I wouldn’t do it 🐝. So apart from the being outside, the sun, all of the different people I have met through it, the beautiful flowers and foliage, the seed catalogues, the wildlife.....I really like propagating things!! In particular, I love taking cuttings and watching them grow into proper plants 🌱. It depends on the type of plant you are trying to propagate, but there are many plants which can be readily multiplied in this way. Just try it! Google and YouTube can always tell you the best techniques for a particular plant. The problem is, sometimes you end up with too many, and I’m too much of a big softie to condemn the spares to the compost heap. A couple of years ago, I took some cuttings from a beautiful hydrangea in the garden of my old home in Leeds. I hadn’t expected them all to take so I took 10 cuttings to be in the safe side but they all rooted and I ended up with 10 hydrangea plants! I’ve just about managed to squeeze them all into the garden. Good news is that I should have plenty available - they’re a deep pink and fab for drying. FYI - my least favourite thing is slugs 🐌. But as I said, I’m a big softie and won’t kill them, but it does mean that certain plants I either accept a fair amount of losses on or don’t bother to grow at all. I’m always pleased to see a big toad in my garden as they will munch them 🐸. I would also like to say that I’m always pleased to see a hedgehog, but very sadly, I haven’t seen a (live) hedgehog in the last 10 years ..... #propagation #nopesticides #nochemicals #hydrangea #hedgehog #slug #locallygrown #britishflowers #flowersfromthefarm #ecoflorist #britishflowergrower #amersham #doorwreath #flowerfarmerama Day 18 is ‘Show us your workspace’. I actually work across several different areas which is tricky at times as nothing ever seems to be in the right place! I grow anything that needs pampering and plenty of TLC in my garden and I also have my greenhouse there for propagating things in. Then anything which is abit more hardy and that I can leave to fend for itself abit more, I grow on my 2 allotment plots. I added a few pics from the allotment at different times of year. The one which is just a big piece of grass with a shed at the bottom is actually how I received my first plot in 2016. It took ALOT of very boring digging to get it into a usable state. I have never encountered anywhere as weedy as that allotment and it is a constant battle to keep the weeds under control. I just try and drown them out with flowers!! I have found #cosmos and #dahlias to be particularly effective at it. In the garden, I have some nice wooden raised beds which are much easier to grow in and maintain. You can just see my greenhouse behind the raised beds which is a lovely 12’x6’ #rhinogreenhouse 🦏. We actually fitted it with a simple offgrid ‘heatsink’ system to keep it warmer overnight: this comprises a solar panel, fan, battery and big hole filled with heat retaining material in the floor. If you want more info, google ‘greenhouse heatsink It’s Not Easy Being Green’ and it will come up with references to Dick Strawbridge’s BBC2 show that this idea appeared on. If I’m honest, I’m not sure how much warmer it really keeps the greenhouse, but it’s a fun contraption and it does mean that the fan runs during the longer days and keeps air circulating around the greenhouse 💨🌻 #greengreenhouse #offgrid #greenenergy #greenpower #solarpower #itisnteasybeinggreen #allotmentlife #greenhouse #nodig #britishflowers #britishflowergrower #tlc #ecoflorist #amersham #grownnotflown #locallygrown #buckinghamshireflorist #flowersfromthefarm Today’s #flowerfarmerama question is ‘What is your favourite tool?’ 😳 Um...I’ve given this one lots of thought and finally decided on my trusty thermos flask which always accompanies me to the plot. Here it is ‘in action’, harbouring a rather splendid-looking #cuppa from @yorkshiretea 😘☕️ #letshaveaproperbrew #allotmentlife #allotmentfun #yorkshiretea #cupoftea #britishflowers #britishflowergrower #ecoflorist #igrewthis #locallygrown #chilterns #amersham Today’s prompt for #flowerfarmerama (well, technically it’s yesterday’s, but hey ...who’s counting?!) is about ‘fabulous combos’. I’m a big fan of combining pink and blue, as shown in this gorgeous bouquet from a wedding in early July last year. This one has some of my favourite blooms, Karma Prospero dahlias and Nigella ‘Curiosity’, plus sweetpeas, Veronica and poppy seedheads 🌸 Looking at this bouquet is making me long for summer 😎 again.....I’ve had enough of #stormBrendan howling outside the window! 🌧💨☂️ #longingforsummer #bringiton #summerbouquet #colourcombo #nigella #dailydahlia #chilterns #amersham #buckinghamshireflorist #britishflowers #ecoflorist #locallygrown Today’s question for #Flowerfarmerama Day 12 is ‘Who are your favourite suppliers?’ I have 2 favourites 😘💕: @chilternseeds for seeds. They have an amazing selection for anyone who is a seed geek 🤓 @peter_nyssen for bulbs and tubers, especially dahlias 🌸 The arrival of the catalogues from both suppliers signals hours of browsing, hard decisions and doom for my creditcard. I chose today’s bouquet because it’s a rather splendid fusion of @peter_nyssen dahlias and hardy annuals from @chilternseeds. Dahlias are: #hillcrestsuffusion, #cornelbronze, #gerryhoek Hardy Annuals are: Cosmos ‘Purity’, Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Summer Fruits’, Rudbeckia hirta ‘Mixed Colours’, Salvia horminum, Limonium sinuatum, plus there’s some fennel in there too 💃🏻🐝 #seedaholic #dazzlingdahlias #britishflowers #flowersfromthefarm #autumnbouquet #bohobouquet #bohowedding #hardyannuals #nopesticides #ecoflorist #locallygrown #buckinghamshireflorist #amersham

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