Beautiful moments captured by Becki Dakin Photography in June of their wedding in Austwick, organised by wedding planner Sian Chaplin. Nothing better than seeing a bride wearing her bouquet with such pride on her special day.
Late July in the walled garden.
Well, after a pretty miserable couple of weeks of constant rain, Dahlia season has finally begun. The intermittent glows of sunshine this week has tempted buds away from their drenched doom and into their full glory. Long may it continue, although I’m not holding my breath with the forecasts for the week ahead.
The beautiful Lychnis chalcedonica, 'Carnea' I sowed a year ago have come into flower and the pollinators have been loving their delicate spray of of tiny flowers. Grown here for ornamental value in the garden, but have multiple purposes as they can also be grown for cut and would make for a whimsical addition to a bouquet.
Gratefully i’ve been in Antirrhinum abundance for a number of weeks whilst perhaps little else has been thriving due to the ‘great’ Pennine weather. They are tremendously pest resident and resilient to a beating of rain, bouncing back whenever the given chance. The annual Phlox too have been showing with much vigor and determination despite non-ideal conditions.
The Verbena hastata 'White Spires' was slow to start and it’d certainly consider this plant as a high summer flowering perennial, as it now just begins to bush up and offer enough flowers to be cut. 50 plugs were planted over winter and year on year we’ll see a greater reward from these plants as they establish a permanent root system.
A great triumph this year has been the continual flowering of the Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’. I’ve sown and grown from my own stock for the past 3 years or so, but this year they have been tall, spraying multiple full flowering stems, gracefully amongst the roses. I’ve not cut from any of the plants, again as they establish, in return of plenty reseeding around the garden as they bring so much pleasure wherever they pop up.
Tomorrow we drive back up to Stockport to return two of our Indian Runner ducks, who unfortunately turned out to be drakes. Whilst i’ve become quite attached to them both, (even with Cherry, the head honcho chasing me around the garden, nipping my ankles and asserting his authority), Kiwi our only female is getting rather too much attention so to speak. Therefore they’re heading back to the farm. We’ll be making our way to Skipton to collect two female Welsh Harlequins on Sunday morning to become Kiwi’s adopted sisters. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. x
A Colourful End to July.
It’s a bright and joyful end of the month here at Honour Farm Flowers, arranging this summer prairie inspired wedding for Liam and Mauricio.
More often than not i’m requested to create wedding flowers in whites and blush, which is my certainly my sweet spot. But when this warm couple contacted me with their bright and cheerful brief I was more than happy to create with a spicier colour palette.
For DIY weddings and events our bud vase bottle vessels are a perfect option and we offer 50-100 bottles filled with the finest seasonal blooms. Available for collection or local delivery, this is definitely a straight forward, hassle free option for a seamless venue set up day which packs plenty of punch.
If you’d like to find our more please email Hattie: hello@honourfarmflowers.co.uk
If I was a flower...
… I would only hope to be as beautiful as our sunflowers.
'Perfectly Bespoke' Wedding Installation at Underbank Chapel School Room - Emily & Nik.
At the start of July we headed to Underbank Chapel School Room - South Yorkshire, to install a ‘Perfectly Bespoke’ wedding for our wonderful clients Emily & Nik. For our bespoke couples I always find it really useful to sketch out final drafts before the install to help set the floral narrative in stone for our clients, which really helps to imagine what the floralscape will look like on the day. I’ve also had past couples make prints of the artwork, which has made for a sweet memento of their special day.
Emily and Nik’s brief was clear and as with many of the bespoke couples I work with, they have a great sense of personal style which really helps to inform the design process. Emily supplied me with images of the table linens and was really sure of a palette which I guided into a colour story, with her trusting in my expertise to interpret and execute their vision for the day. I used plenty of ethereal, seasonal stems as always with peonies some early season dahlia’s for punctuation and stunning foxtail lilies for gestural movement.
A selection of 50 bud vase bottles were filled using annual phlox, scabious, grasses, calendula cut fresh the day prior to travelling to South Yorkshire. These informal bud vase bottles are a great way of creating impact on tablescapes and can be easily moved and distributed around food, cutlery and glassware.
I designed a series of aisle meadows in our cement troughs that could be moved after the ceremony and be lined up in front of the top table. These clever additions really can be very transformative, especially in smaller location venues such as this beautiful village hall. The designs were created to bring a sense of seasonal abundance, like a summer hedgerow you’d see in a cottage garden in the British countryside.
Nik’s groomsmen buttonholes were hand formed using grasses, achillea, scabious and tweedia. Finished with gingham ribbon. Carrying on the colour story and bringing the designs together from their outfits to room styling.
The meadow scenes are each created by hand with my diligent event assistant Ruby handing me each stem as I work through installations. I create each scene using only sustainable techniques i’ve engineered and trialed in-house and on site over the past 5 years. We never use traditional floral foam and where possible we re-use as much as we can from each install - with clients returning vessels on a 14 day hire contract. I am practically doing double the work, with twice the effort, but first and foremost comes our concerns for environmental change within the floral industry and that will remain the way far into the future. An installation of this measure takes around 25 hours in studio (phone/email consultations, sketching, curating designs, flower conditioning and prep work) and 7-8 hours on site. 4 hours the day prior to event and 3 hours on the day for final finishing.
I take great pride in the level of detail and organisation that goes into bringing these visions to life for our clients and couples, always aiming to go above and beyond. Adapting well to new venues and additional assets needed throughout the event process.
A huge thank you to Emily and Nik for inviting us to work on this wedding brief, and to event assistant Ruby for being my logistical dream maker as always.
Our books are currently open for 2024/2025 and I recommend contacting early to secure your date. You can email me at hello@honourfarmflowers.co.uk - where it’d be more than happy to discuss flowers with you for your special day or event.
You can read our reviews and testimonals over on Bridebook, where we are currently rated #1 on the search for Wedding Florists in the West Yorkshire.
Hattie x
Duck Joy in the walled garden.
Just endless joy from our feathered friends.
And free pest control, win win.
Father's Day.
Don’t let the ducks steal the show, because the real star here is J. What a wonderful daddy you are to our sweet urchin.
Evenings of June.
The evenings are the perfect time during these warm June days to take stock of what’s coming into flower and noting the endless tasks that a garden demands as high season approaches.
A floral affair.
It is truly incomprehensible the sheer joy it brings me to create arrangements with only produce grown from our garden. The hours, days, weeks, months, years, labouring over a multitude of tasks just to bring each flower to fruition. It may seem daft to some, the unwavering commitment I have to my flowers. But having such a great connection with nature is for me what living life to it’s fullest is all about.
An aching back, the sign of a productive day or the rush of joy and excitement when handing over a bridal bouquet or finishing up an installation. It’s not just a job, it’s a passion, an obsession.
If I can promise you one thing it’s this, you will never receive an arrangement that hasn’t been tenderly cared for if it passes my hands.
'I'll have one of whatever she's drinking'
Floral design sure is thirsty work.
Sweet William's of early summer.
Mid June Garden Moments.
Gentle moments from the walled garden in mid June.
June Market Flowers.
Another wonderful market in Ilkley with Real Food Markets!
We’ll be taking a short break in July whilst we get through a month of glorious weddings, but we’ll be back on the 6th August.
Olivia & Adam - April 2023, Eaves Hall.
What an absolute joy and a pleasure it was to create the florals for this beautiful couple back in April. Olivia had a strong idea of the sort of colours she’d like to fit inline with her wonderfully illustrated signage and stationery. Of course, i’m more than happy to oblige with a mouthwatering strawberry, lemon, peachy palette.
Photography by Dan Cuthbertson
A River Of Flowers for a British country wedding.
This morning when I stepped back after making B’s quintessential country style bridal bouquet, I gazed at the organic shapes created by the stems forming a river of flowers. Finished with the delicate float of freshly cut Clematis vine. I am completely in my comfort zone creating romantic, whimsical, country arrangements - this is the style of work I love to create and (I think) what my clients come to me for. So thank you.
B’s bridal and bridesmaid arrangements were designed to be highly fragranced too, reflecting the finest bounty this time of year has to offer with the sweet stocks and Hesperis. The drive over to Austwick was a pleasant one, counting the tractors working hard in the fields and inhaling the natural scent of these late Spring blooms.
T’s groomsmen buttonholes were created using entirely dried materials it’d stored from last summer. This is a great option for those requiring early delivery the day prior to the wedding. In fact dried buttonholes are requested 95% of the time for reliability and ease of attaching, making every step of your day stress free. These delicately wrapped little works of art were then finished with velvet ribbon and boxed neatly to be handed over to the groom. The grasses really bring the designs together, reflecting the current produce out in our meadows in late May.
B & T’s wedding was mostly a DIY supply, delivering to them 3 buckets bursting with the finest stems available to cut at this time of year. I can’t wait to see how they use the material to finish off the wonderful setting of their wedding tomorrow. B’s mother had been out foraging this morning, cutting cow parsley and hawthorn blossom, wonderful editions to this sustainably sourced wedding.
With love from Honour Farm, have an incredible wedding day x
Spring Tree Planting.
Magnus planted his first trees today, Malus Domestica ‘Discovery’. A couple of apple trees to you and I. It feels pretty virtuous to be bringing new life to this forgotten place, when most days are unavoidably non-virtuous in so many ways.
But we’re trying as often as we can to offset the imbalance, continuing to learn and grow, altering our bad habits, nurturing the good. Life’s life, we do our best, but there’s nothing quite as honourable as planting a tree.
There’s been plenty of ‘slow moments’ this week spent potting up plants, cutting tulips for market & florist orders and mucking out the ducks. However, I need to lean on the word ‘slow’ more, as life seems to be quite busy right now, as it is for so many young families.
Just reminding myself to check my emails less frequently when i’m doing land work and to embrace the days the way we intended to when deciding upon moving here. Which is easier said than done but completely attainable, with some conscious thought and action.
I just want to soak up all the moments, slow and fleeting, that are spent with my sweet boy and husband, finding our feet during our first summer living from Honour Farm cottage. I so already know that these will be the memories I look back on for a lifetime. x
It's good to be back.
As mentioned earlier in the week on Floral Notes, today we were at The Real Food Market in Ilkley and it felt better than expected to be back (which made the late night bouquet session worth every hour). I had forgotten how much it’d missed connecting with the lovely people in our local communities and how much that conversation and engagement means to be as a grower and small business owner.
Earlier in the year I took part in the DEFRA New Entrant Pilot Programme, ran by the government. One of the comments land workers and farmers across the country fed back to their cohorts was how much that peer to peer support meant to them and for me atleast, I get that same reassurance from speaking with the public and sharing our tenderly grown produce for all to see.
It was another sell out market day for us, just the encouragement I didn’t realise I needed to motivate me through the rest of high season. So thank you to everyone who took the time to stop and chat flowers and support the work we’re doing by buying a bunch. See you next month x
Find Us: Ilkley Real Food Market, Sunday 7th May, 10-3pm.
This weekend is our first market of the year and it’s set to be a good one as the Kings Coronation celebrations will be in full swing across the town of Ilkey in all it’s well dressed regalia.
We’ll be proudly positioned across from Betty’s, the world famous tearoom, once again with our petite flower cart bursting with spring grown blooms fresh from our walled garden.
All bunches are £15 - we like to make our bunches inclusive for everyone to enjoy at home or gift!
See you there, Hattie x
March Snow Drifts in the walled garden.
I can’t keep up with this weather, however it did make for a beautiful late winter scene in walled garden this week. x
Honour Farm Cottage: February Renovation Update.
The February renovation update is coming to you from the first week of March, as time seems to be quite literally vanishing in front of my eyes at the moment. Some days I don’t know if i’m coming or going but an end is in sight and we might, just might, have moved in by the end of March , eek.
February was the month of new windows! The upgrade I was probably looking forward to most our renovation journey.
Below Before > After.
Sliding Sash windows installed by Fox Kitchens.
We opted for sliding sash to keep in-line with the age of the property. They were on the higher end of our budget but our thought process was, and has been through-out all our decision making, do it once and do it right. Certainly not the cheapest approach at times, but hopefully choices that’ll stand the test of time. We updated 8 out of the 10 windows we have, leaving the existing in the kitchen and spare room for now as our plan is to extend out from the kitchen in the next 5 years.
A considerable amount of change has happened in the kitchen however. We wanted to tidy the room up, making it practical and somewhat attractive whilst we work towards saving for the extension. So we asked our builders to instead of re-skimming the walls, to clad the entire room with tongue and grove panels. The cladding will be prepped and primed this coming week ahead of being painted and the sink unit being installed.
The kitchen is very loosely designed using all freestanding furniture and oven. I wanted the flexibility to reuse the sink unit in my workshop in the future and invested in an oven which is far too large for this space, but like our mantra has been for, do it once and do it right, rather than spending money on a smaller oven and only having to replace in less than a decade. I managed to find this refurbished Falcon oven second hand online, I was really particular about finding a stainless steel and brass edition which are quite hard to come by. I’m really pleased I stuck with that vision as it’s just as impressive in person and I’m very much looking forward to cooking for the family on it. I’m yet to find or have made a larder cupboard, but I hope during one of my antiquing trips this year i’ll be able to find exactly what i’m looking for. Hopefully by the time the next renovation update is due, the kitchen will have come on a significant amount more to show you.
All the rooms are now freshly plastered and it’s incredible to see the house all pieced back together and reimagined. It’s exciting to finally allow myself to think about all the possibilities when it comes to decorating, although i’m finding decision making particularly difficult as I hate fixing myself to trends and often doubt my choices. So, I don’t anticipate the house will be finished for many years to come but it’s going to be a home very soon for us. After 2 years of daydreaming of being inside, this is music to my ears. x