greenery is an independent floral design business working with seasonal flowers and sustainable materials and methods.
Based in Middleton Cheney in West Northamptonshire, greenery offers beautiful eco-aware floristry in the area surrounding the market town of Banbury.
In addition to a handful of bespoke weddings each year, sympathy flowers, and creative workshops in a range of local venues, I find joy in creating seasonal gift bouquets and arrangements for any occasion.
I am committed to seasonality and sustainability. greenery not only sums up a striving for environmentally-friendly floristry, but also the gorgeous variety available in just foliage – flowers are beautiful, but there is a wealth of stunning green flora we can make the most of too.
Kate Ladd, greenery
Homegrown, not flown
The greenery cutting garden resides in a former vegetable patch on the Warwickshire farm where I grew up. It's a beautiful location, with the Burton Dassett Hills to the North and Edgehill to the South and lots of opportunity for fabulous foraging. These flowers are supplemented with blooms from specialist British growers to minimise the impacts of air freight, road miles, packaging and refrigeration processes.
One exciting thing about growing-your-own is that the menu changes not just seasonally, but weekly! A cutting garden enables a wide variety in a single bouquet, incorporating diverse scent, textures and form. And as for colour combinations, then more is definitely more! My cutting garden is at its best from May to September, providing truly local flowers, which are supplemented during peak times and cooler months with British-grown flowers from larger growers.
, greenery offers sound customer advice and an alternative to fast flowers, allowing you to enjoy nature's beauty with a clearer conscience.
So what makes a greener choice?
While there is always more that can be done, here's a list of greenery's ethical aims
flower-sourcing hierarchy: choosing sustainably foraged, home-grown, local, British, and then Fairtrade imports before other options. I always try to start at the beginning of this list - sometimes it just isn't possible, but every time there is an opportunity to reduce packaging or delivery distance (be it air miles, or car miles) or to support large-scale growers with strong environmental or ethical credentials, I take them.
seasonality: as with seasonal eating, this offers the joy of rediscovery each season, encourages imagination and resourcefulness in finding flowers in the hierarchy above, and lessens the likelihood that flowers have required the extra energy input of being grown under cover.
reduced, reused and recycled materials: eco-friendly ideas and alternatives to what were once industry staples (such as floral foam and cellophane) - whether it’s jam jar posies or other repurposed containers, recycled paper wrapping and labels, biodegradable twines and raffia, or reusable ribbon for those ultra-special occasions, stickers & business cards printed on recycled paper, I consider the impact of the consumables I use regularly. There’s always an alternative to floral foam.
responsible waste disposal reducing, composting, repurposing and recycling are all part of the greenery way of life.
