Seasonally Affected… An Autumn Blog Post by Sarah

October 23, 2015

We’ve always said we embrace the seasons. Nothing excites us more than seeing new flowers emerge or trying out new recipes with fruit and vegetables that are abundant.

But it’s Autumn that gets me every year; maybe because we live somewhere which has trees on every hillside, in every valley and in every shade from pale gold, rust, crimson, burgundy. It’s also because in Autumn our garden and the cutting garden become more theatrical than ever. The borders with their ‘Piet Oudolf’-inspired planting become like living sculptures dancing in the Autumn breeze and bathed in the warm afternoon light – the kind of light you just don’t get at any other time of year.

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The cutting garden seems to revel in encore after encore as dahlias compete with cosmos and snap dragons and roses put on their final show, just so we don’t forget they are still around, and as for the chocolate cosmos and the hydrangeas…

 

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Indoors Mrs B starts on her batches of chutney and thinks of ways to use apples. I usually prefer apples on branches so that I can use them ‘florally’ but the new apple/frangipane tart is sublime.

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Autumn this year has seen us open our new workshop alongside the garden and we now have the ultimate luxury of only having to walk a few feet, often still clutching a half-made bouquet in order to find the perfect finishing flower or to snip heucheras and scented pelargonium leaves for buttonholes.

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Oh, and we went to Scotland. Together with Rachael Scott (Hedgerow) and Paula Baxter (Millpond Flower Farm) we co-hosted a Scottish flowers workshop in Edinburgh and met some of Scotland’s finest flower growers and florists. Helping Mrs B pack her various trunks of food, crockery, tableware and trying also to sneak in a few Yorkshire-grown dahlias was a logistical conundrum but at least we had flapjack close at hand.

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As our favourite season draws to a close we have our busiest winter to date to look forward to.  Mrs B is busy creating menus for champagne lunches and an array of canapés for our evening wreath workshops.

As we then snuggle down for Christmas and to enjoy a few books in front of the fire we will be thinking of our next project.  We like to put together things we love so… flowers and food… flowers, food, books, wine… If anyone would like to express an interest in our first ‘seasonal flower and book club’ please get in touch. More details to follow, probably via Instagram – our current favourite method of communication.

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