NEW: Ready Planted goes retail. From Thursday 2nd July I’m taking a corner of the Rivers Meet shop stocking floristry sundries, accessories, vases and fair trade – come and join me on the day for launch day discounts at Rivers Meet Craft Cafe, Leeds Road, Methley LS26 9EP!
I’ve come a very complicated route to my present job…..but nowadays when I’m asked what I do for a living I’m not quite sure what to say!
- Am I florist? Yes but a freelance. I haven’t got a shop which makes me very flexible and pretty reasonable.
- Am I garden designer? Well yes, but I don’t just design I can offer advice and help as well, or go the whole hogg.
- Am I a gardener? Yes to that too, but not the kind who arrives with lots of petrol driven devices and cuts and hacks back – more the kind that prunes, renovates, lifts and divides, replants and mulches…as one of my clients put it, “proper gardening”.
- Do I sell hanging baskets? Yes again, but I also do window boxes, planters etc and I can either deliver them ready planted or come to you and replant your conainers and planters to complement the location wherever that is.
So one way or another I’ve become a gardener cum garden designer and a florist for events and occasions and now I’m starting to grow my own in a more organised way. I’m setting about growing perennial plants for sale …but that’s a bit in the future just now. In the past I’ve had careers in the media and in sales and marketing and one day when things were totally upside down I decided to turn my life upside down as well and take up gardening…. and from there the floristry evolved and now I do weddings and other work mostly for parties or corporate events.
This new life has given me a chance to explore the possibilities and try out things I’m good at…and it turns out I am good with flowers.
I moved in 2009 to a house with a completely derelict garden. I wanted the space but I had bitten off rather a lot. Hopefully not too much. Gradually I’m getting there and starting to see an garden emerging from the bricks, bindweed and brambles. Pulling my first vegetables from this once unloved patch was a real milestone…as was actually sitting in the garden rather than sitting in the rubble.
Since I got here I’ve started to keep ex-battery hens. I’m having to come to terms with the fact that some of them will be short lived because of their previous lives, but it gives me great satisfaction to see them skipping about in the grass and dodging the cat…till they realise that if they chase her she’ll run!
I’m always interested in lots of things…if only there were more hours in the day….languages (which is an area I used to work in), crafts and craft fairs, I love flower shows and theatre, ballet and opera and singing, and food of course and since I have lots of eggs these days I enjoy baking and here I am caught eating cake. Definitely a favourite pastime.
Readyplanted 