In some respects, this type of flower production is not new at all. Shane connolly, renowned for the notably seasonal floral schemes that defined the wedding of catherine Middleton to HRH prince William in Westminster Abbey in 2011, notes that before plant material was air-freighted into the country from large flower farms abroad, it was natural to bring flowers from the garden into the home and, as a consequence, floral arrangements bore a looser, wilder style than the more formal designs that would come to the fore in the mid to late-twentieth century.
One exception to this later mode of practice might be found in pulbrook & Gould. In the Sloane Street studio founded in 1956 by Lady pulbrook and Rosamund Gould, cow parsley has always been as prized as lilies; wild blackberries as cherished as roses. connolly, who trained there, recalls gardeners arriving at the shop premises with car-loads of flowers they had grown themselves.
“What we’re seeing now is a move back to that style of the early twentieth century,” Connolly notes.
