My Favourite Flower - Hannah Bullivant

My guest for this month's My Favourite Flower column, is the obscenely talented Hannah Bullivant. Hannah is an interiors stylist, freelance writer, and events organiser.  She is also one half of the brilliant blog; Seeds and Stitches.  Hannah writes Seeds and Stitches alongside artist and maker Davina Drummond, they both eloquently share their wonderful ideas for living seasonally, crafting, things they love and snippets from their lives.  It is one of my favourite blogs, so I highly recommend you pop over for a read sometime.

Here is what Hannah has to say about her favourite flower:

"I must first confess that I’m not sure I have a single favourite flower. I’m quite likely to get gleefully carried away with whatever is in abundance in the season; merrily snapping photo’s, taking great lungfuls of scent and sneakily, (responsibly *serious face*) clipping the odd bloom or two to display at home. When Emma asked me what my favourite flower was, I deliberated somewhat. A sweetly smelling Rose? The tumbling cherry blossom of Spring? The stature of the Hollyhock? It was all much too difficult, until my eyes alighted on the dried hydrangea heads in little cut glass vases right in front of me. Hydrangeas. Yes, one of my favourites, and for many reasons.

I love hydrangeas for their gumption and determination to grow, even with the most lackadaisical of gardeners. Ahem. I love them for their magical colour changing petals that can be blue one year and pink the next (yes, yes I know its about the PH balance, but magic is a more exciting prospect, don’t you think?). I love them for their heads of hundreds of delicate lacy petals nodding like enormous pompoms in the sun. For being called names like Lace Caps and Mop Heads. And for drying so utterly beautifully, meaning hydrangea floral goodness way in to November and beyond, to brighten darker days. I know there is a raging debate about how best to dry them, but like most things, I take the lazy route, and have found that by simply leaving my hydrangea’s in their water until they are crisp, they retain their colour and dry perfectly.

November is such a beautiful month- the tipping point between Autumn and Winter where we spend much more time indoors, and where I become increasingly grateful for things like candles and blankets, log fires, and dried flowers. I avoid buying flowers that have been shipped in from abroad (inconvenient, yes, but it has such a huge cost to our lovely planet), so in the darker months I use winter greenery, sticks, leaves and dried flowers heads to decorate indoors.

My hydrangeas are still quite young and have produced beautiful yet still small heads of blooms. This makes me like them even more. They have been woven in to seasonal wreathes by me and students in our recent workshop (here), have been plonked into vases around the house and been woven through twine to adorn a beautifully wrapped gift.

All photos by Hannah

So that’s my little ode to the hydrangea, my (current!) favourite flower."

Thank you so much for sharing your current favourite Hannah, and alongside such beautiful photos.  I absolutely love the wreath.  I also hope that what Hannah wrote might inspire you all to try buying more seasonal flowers.

You can find Hannah here:

Have a lovely weekend.

Emma x

Flowers, Home, My Favourite Flower, StyledEmma Harrisblog column, botantical photography, dried hydrangeas, floral, floral photography, flower arrangement, flowers, hannah bullivant, hydrangea, hydrangea crown, hydrangea wreath, hydrangeas, lifestyle blog, lifestyle blog flowers, my favourite flower, natural dyed ribbon, photography, plant dyed ribbon, roses, seeds and stitches1 Comment