The irresistible romance of an old walled garden.
Stokesay Flowers was born out of a love of the English countryside, a delight in the beauty of hedgerow and cottage garden flowers, and our desire to work closely with the land.
All our flowers and foliage are grown outside in the gardens without any cover of any kind, which we find makes them grow strong and well. We don’t use any chemicals in our growing, and no irrigation, only watering deeply when things are first planted, relying on thick mulches to keep the moisture in the soil. As they have established in this very gentle way, the gardens have grown to be a picture of health, and they now support a wide variety of native creatures, from birds and insects to snakes and rodents - everyone is welcome!
We like to grow as many of our plants as possible from seeds and cuttings, and to buy the rest from reputable British growers, such as Halls of Heddon (dahlias and chrysanthemums), Trevor White (roses), Howards (herbaceous perennials) and Norwells (chrysanthemums and perennials).
Our growing season begins in earnest in March, when Morwenna gets busy in the tiny polytunnel at Stokesay, sowing seeds and potting on autumn-sown seedlings.
Our picking team get up bright an early to harvest the flowers and get them into buckets of cool water before the day heats up.
The buckets of flowers and foliage are carefully checked before they are stored overnight in the cool of our old outbuildings at the gardens.
Then our drivers appear even earlier the following morning, to deliver the flowers to the florists in one of our vans. Look out for Andy in his blossomy Sprinter!
Meanwhile, Maria and team are busily cutting back perennials, pulling out spent annuals, and weeding the beds. This is also the time of year when we try to divide some of our more established perennials and get a thick layer of mulch on all the beds.
