Every day of the week is different in our little flower shop. Different suppliers come on different days. Different staff on different days – and for me different working hours on different days depending on the pre-school run! I love the variety and it’s a big part of why I love my job. No two days are the same.

The first priority of any florist is fresh flowers for the day. Before we started our family I spent many a misty morning driving over the downs for 5.30am flower collections from our suppliers. But since having my babes I’ve found a few new suppliers that are happy to deliver great quality flowers straight to our store up to 4 days a week. That’s been life changing to be honest, not to mention saving precious minutes of a morning!

Once in the shop (after a cup of strong English Breakfast) we start the day by checking all of our online orders, what deliveries need to be scheduled and any priority arrangements. If there is a funeral planned our first delivery is to take the funeral flowers straight to the funeral directors.

Next stop is to get our imaginations firing by arranging our display of plants outside the shop and creating our ‘ready to go’ flower bouquets. I really enjoy playing around with our outside display, using crates, tables, ladders, benches – anything interesting that we have to hand really! One of my favourite props is our vintage bike – pop a …

I think I was always destined to be a florist. My first floral memory is from when I was around 8 years old picking handfuls of petals from my mum’s rose garden (sorry mum!) and mixing them with water to create a perfume – can you imagine how that looked or smelt?! I would spend masses of time stirring the petals to get the water nicely scented, decant into small glass bottles and sell them from a little table I set up in our front garden hoping to get customers from the pavement beyond (it was a popular dog walking route – I had my fingers crossed!).

I started as a Saturday girl in a local florist in Ryde when I was 13 years old. Literally starting at the bottom – washing out dirty buckets and vases, watering and repotting plants and making bows – so many bows! All this before I was even allowed to touch a flower and get arranging. I didn’t mind though, I think it’s important to learn your craft from the bottom up. I really loved going to work on a Saturday with such a great group of people and learning new skills.

Next up, I moved to a florist in Southsea. I would commute over on the boat five days a week and on the sixth day I attended Highbury College. The college provided a fantastic opportunity to study traditional floristry skills so important for any budding florist. Loaded up with my armfuls of …

Oh February! We love you – and not just on Valentines Day! January is out of the way and longer days are peeping through. It’s amazing how positive the world looks as the days draw out.

There are definite signs of spring popping up all over our beautiful little Island. Green shoots unfurling all over the place. We took a chilly walk around Newchurch last week starting off at the church, walking around Martin’s Woods and ending at The Pointers pub (where we enjoyed a REALLY tasty roast FYI). As we were strolling I spotted a carpet of delicate snowdrops. Pure and white. The first spring flower to bloom after winter frosts. A sign of rebirth, consolation and hope.…

And we’re back to the bench! After a lovely break over Christmas and new year making special memories with our families we’ve come back to the Floral Boutique in Ryde refreshed and ready to see what 2019 has in store.

January can be a nice quiet time in a florist, gradually getting back into the swing of things and making lots of exciting plans for the year ahead (as well as drinking copious amounts of tea to keep us warm!).

This year we will be introducing special offers and discounts as well as adding workshop dates to each season – if you’d like to be the first to hear about them why not join our mailing list?…