There is a unique sense of peace and stillness that exists in nature that I don’t experience anywhere else. A gentle exhale, a feeling of coming back to myself, in a place where I can understand and be understood. I know this is a feeling shared by many.

I feel close to God in these green, peaceful spaces. It feels like second nature to treat them with reverence and respect.

This naturally finds its way into how I work. I try to think in circles rather than straight lines, with their defined start points and end points. "There is no away”, as George Monbiot so perfectly put it.

How can I stay close to that idea in my own work? Growing as much as I possibly can, if I'm short, sourcing from other British growers. Gathering and drying flowers naturally, using no chemicals. Exploring my creativity through this medium, and perhaps most importantly of all in this context, considering what will eventually happen to the pieces that leave my studio, as well as the things other than flowers I use to make them.

This stretches beyond the floral pieces themselves and into the packaging, the business cards and the flyers I include in your order. I make my business cards with a stamp, using non-toxic vegetable dye on handmade paper made from recycled cotton. Instead of a printed flyer, I include a handwritten note. 

In the back of my mind, the beautiful concept of a closed-loop way of making is always ticking over. My "bin" is mostly my compost heap, and it gives me lots of satisfaction to know that discarded stems go towards feeding next years flowers. I avoid any sort of chemical usage in my flowers - mostly because it feels like sacrilege!- but also because if I did I would no longer be able to compost those stems, therefore breaking the loop and creating a line.

Suffice to say I don't have it all figured out. While my wreaths and bouquets are 100% home compostable, down to the acid free paper they are wrapped in, my festive offerings like the floral chimes and blush tinsel use wire and gold twine. They will last for many years (certainly longer than some poorly made plastic ones!) but still, what happens to them at the end of their life cycle? Still working on that one.

Sustainability isn’t an easy thing to talk about. I can tie myself up in knots about it and, to be honest, I avoid using the word as much as possible. It’s become a buzzword, bandied about without much thought for what it actually means. I think, as humans, we have a desire to tie things up neatly and put them in a box labelled “done”. Sustainability: tick. 

But our relationship with the natural world, and the impact we have on it, is ongoing. Perhaps it’s less about finding the perfect answer and more about continuing to ask the questions...