Favourite Flower - The Garden Gate Flower Company

My guests for this month's My Favourite Flower column are Maz and Becca, who together grow and arrange flowers absolutely beautifully, as The Garden Gate Flower Company. I am constantly in awe of the arrangements they post on Instagram and not surprisingly very envious of the fact that they grow them. I think that Maz and Becca demonstrate the beauty of British flowers perfectly, and if I lived a bit closer to their Cornish farm, they would never get rid of me!

Photo by Taylor & Porter Fine Art Film Photography

What is your favourite flower and why?

We work seasonally and so it really does vary with the time of year, in spring it has to be tulips, in summer roses, in autumn dahlias and winter, hellebores. This is likely to change very often! Becca is a girl who likes to change her mind, and I just like everything, mostly, all the time.

Photo by The Garden Gate Flower Company

How do you like to display flowers in your home?

At home we both like to keep things simple. With weddings and events it gets very indulgent and we don’t feel the need for complicated displays in our homes. I do love making ‘arrangements’ but I also love the particular character of plants and flowers in their own right. So at home right now I have a long branch of rosehips in an earthenware vase on my mantel piece. Its so nice to just see its shape and form. I also try out colour combinations by putting just a couple of one thing, with a bit of another. If we grow a new flower to us, I’ll pick one or two so I can get to know it better, its form and colour, but also vase life and habit. In winter a vase of just pine or eucalyptus looks lovely and smells great too. One or two scented flowers is a nice way to perfume the house.

Photo by D'Arcy Benincosa Photography

The Garden Gate Flower Company, have a few Christmas workshops at The Duchy of Cornwall Nursery in Lostwithiel, Cornwall this month, and a big weddings workshop with guest florist Ashley Beyer from Tinge Floral in April. You can find details here.

You can also follow Becca and Maz here:

Becca and Maz have very kindly shared a buttonhole tutorial with me, beautifully shot on film by Taylor and Porter, which I will post separately tomorrow, so make sure you pop back.

Emma x