It's our first appearance at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and we're selling the props from our stand on eBay to pay for it.
Flowers From The Farm [FFTF] is a not-for-profit company totally run by volunteers: we're not selling produce at Chelsea and have NO SPONSOR: we're there to showcase British flowers and our organisation.
Our flowers will be stunning - but our props are pretty amazing too. We'll have 3 life-size wire sculptures and one larger piece made of hay, wood and wire: each is bespoke, top quality and utterly unique. Offering them on eBay in an auction starting on opening day and finishing at close of show will give us chance to recoup some of our outlay and, perhaps if we're lucky, set aside a nest-egg for 2019.
100% BRITISH
All of the flowers and foliage we're using will have been grown here in Britain by FFTF's own members. #grownnotflown
READY ... STEADY ... ARRANGE
In this most polished of flower shows, our design team are surely the only exhibitors in the Pavilion not to know what sort of flowers they will be using until 36 hours before Press Day.
BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
We're displaying cut flowers but have resolved to use NO FLORAL FOAM in the building of our display. Floral foam takes over 100 years to degrade in landfill.
CONFIDENCE IN US
The RHS have placed us slap-bang in the very centre of the Great Pavilion. As newcomers, we had expected to wait years for this accolade.
A TANGLE OF SUPPLIERS
The great flower migration happens on Saturday 19thMay when members from Inverness to the Scillies [and everywhere in between] finishes picking their flowers and loads them into cars and ferries converging at agreed hubs and at motorway service stations. Larger vans will then take the buckets further on their journey, eventually arriving into London late in the day.
OUR THANKS
FFTF wish to thank the team at Simon J Lycett Ltd whose generous offer of workspace and a delivery hub has made a logistical jigsaw a lot easier.
ABOUT US
FFTF was founded in 2011 by Gill Hodgson, a Yorkshire farmer, who recognized the opportunity for gardeners, growers and farmers to gain an income from growing cut flowers for market.
Since then, FFTF's membership has grown to 500 but it remains a not-for-profit company priding itself on generously sharing information; encouraging new start-ups and fostering a non-competitive atmosphere between its members.
It's this ethos that has made FFTF's debut at Chelsea possible: every member involved has given their time, expertise, flowers and their travel for free.
Gill Hodgson, FFTF's founder and now Honorary President says:
"I visited Chelsea Flower Show last year and thought, ‘We could do this'. So I came home and drew a design, filled in an application form and sent it off to the RHS; it was only after I received our letter of acceptance that I told the rest of the committee.
"Our reason for appearing at Chelsea was always about raising the profile of British flowers and of FFTF. We agreed that medals didn't matter and that publicity was the key: we all agreed to this and we actually meant it too. As Chelsea gets closer though, it's surprising how attractive the prospect of a medal is becoming.
"I started FFTF thinking how good it would be to have a few dozen flower farmers who could share knowledge and encourage each other. I couldn't have envisaged that, seven years later, we'd have 500 members and be heading to Chelsea."
Ends
Photo: Peggy and Gill Hodgson with a selection of home grown flowers
Press contact: Gill Hodgson 07803127081
press@flowersfromthefarm.co.uk
www.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk