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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

Spring Flowers and Weddings

February really flew by and now March is here, Spring, Mothering Sunday and soon it'll be Easter.

It was a really busy month for my flowers and plants at Cowdray Farm Shop and I've been super busy this year with weddings and events work, visiting some amazing venues with wonderful wedding planners and beautiful brides to be. I'm so lucky to have been booked for some wonderful, wild, whimsical weddings this year and look forward to sharing these with you as they happen.

Unusually, I've had many early requests for my Spring wreaths this year, I absolutely love making them so I'm very happy. Here's one I put into Cowdray Farm Shop last week, It's made with mimosa, paperwhite narcissi, broom and forget me nots and the scent is fabulous.

Pudding Theatre

I had the pleasure of providing the flowers for this gorgeous 'pudding theatre' for Jacaranda Catering this month. They were showcasing their delicious desserts at a wedding fair at Ramster Hall.

The bike, and the most excellent idea, belong to the fabulous Minty Moore, one of the wonderful Senior Event Managers at Jacaranda Catering!

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

A Joyous June Wedding

Miranda and James married on June 25th 2016. The wedding ceremony was held at St Mary's church in Eastbourne on the Cowdray Estate and the reception was held at the beautiful Cowdray House in Midhurst, West Sussex.

We provided the flowers and Jacaranda catering provided the hospitality.

It was a huge pleasure to work with Miranda and her wonderful parents, Sue and Bob,

Miranda and James have kindly allowed me to share their gorgeous wedding video with you here.

December Tablescape

Well, it's a floral time of year and the last few weeks have been incredibly busy for us at This Floral Life.

We've been making lots of wreaths, table decorations, planters and flowers for the Cowdray Farm shop and decorating trees, houses and shops for Christmas. It's been really hard work but so lovely and beautifully festive. It's a great time of year to be a florist!

We've worked on some gorgeous events recently and this weekend we set up gorgeous Christmas tablescape for a private dinner at Cowdray House, Midhurst.

The dinner was in the fabulous Buck Hall and with the huge Christmas tree, balcony fireplace garlands that we installed last week, the room looked amazing. With the fire lit and hundreds of candles around the room, the stage was set for a magical Christmas event.

An Autumn Wedding at Cowdray House

It was a glorious Autumn morning for Krisztina and Graeme's wedding at Cowdray House on 8th October 2016.

If you look through this journal you may have seen that I was the florist for the very first wedding held at Cowdray House, at the end of June this year. Well, this wedding included the first actual civil wedding ceremony at the house.

Autumn is a great time to get married and at Cowdray House the views from the ceremony room out to the garden are spectacular with all of the colours of Autumn represented in the landscape.

The flowers also included colours from the Autumn landscape mixed with pink and peaches and the last flush of the English roses.

The wedding reception in Buck Hall, Cowdray House, Midhurst, West Sussex

June wedding at Cowdray House, West Sussex

It's been an extraordinarily busy Summer and I have some catching up to do on this journal. Apologies!

Now, I posted a photograph that I took of Miranda, my gorgeous bride whose reception was at Cowdray House at the end of June, but I didn't post any of my other photographs so I aim to address that in this journal entry.

It was a fabulous wedding and the Lewis family were an absolute dream to work with. It's always such a huge pleasure for me to work with such lovely people on these really important occasions in their lives. Helping to create great memories through flowers and styling, it's hard not to be swept up in the happiness wave. We became firm friends in the run up to the wedding and we've met up on several occasions since and I know we'll always stay in touch.

The Lewis's wedding was one of the first weddings that Cowdray House had hosted and Sian and Jayne, who hosted the weekend on behalf of the house, made sure it was a huge success. Jacaranda Catering provided the food and a team to run the event over the weekend, led by the amazing Minty Moore and I hear that the food was superb. If you're looking for a caterer for a wedding or an event, do get in touch with them, I often work with them on events and the clients are always really delighted with their excellent food and brilliant service.

My team were superb (Nia, Sue, Rob, Alyson and Stuart) and we had a great time making and installing the flowers. We all went on to make and install the floral decorations at another large private party the day after so it was a very busy few days, but fun too.

Here are a few of the photographs that I took on the morning of the wedding.

Happy memories.

St Mary's Church, Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex

A Country Wedding in July

It was another beautiful July day in West Sussex when Claire and Graham's wedding took place.

We used seasonal English flowers in pink, ivory and blue to create garden inspired table wreaths with candles ; candles being an essential component at all weddings, no matter what time of year.

Claire's gorgeous bridal bouquet was filled with garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias in blush pink, jasmine trails, pink oregano and pink garden anemones.

Wedding at Cowdray House - The beautiful Bride

This was such a beautiful wedding and the family were an absolute joy to work with.

Miranda and James got married on 25th June 2016 at St Mary's Church, Cowdray Park, Easebourne, Midhurst and the weekend reception and celebrations were held at the fabulous Cowdray House, Midhurst.

Miranda looked incredibly beautiful and I managed to take a few photos of her leaving Cowdray House for the Church. I'll post more shortly but here is one of my favourites...