HOW WE GROW
Everything begins beneath our feet.
Before there are flowers, there is soil.
Healthy soil is the beginning of everything we grow here on the Patch, so much of what we do starts with caring for the life beneath the surface.
We add organic matter, make compost, keep the soil covered where we can and try not to disturb it unnecessarily. It is slower than using other methods, but regenerative farming practices resonate deeply with us and we incorporate these principles wherever we can throughout the garden. We want this little patch of land to become richer, healthier and more alive with every season we grow on it and to, one day, leave it better than we found it.
Growing with nature
We don’t expect the garden to behave perfectly.
In fact, it rarely does.
Weather changes plans. Seeds germinate when they’re ready. Some plants thrive where I least expect them to, while others I’ve carefully fussed over decide they have absolutely no interest in cooperating.
Rather than trying to control every part of the growing process, we work with the conditions we’re given. We observe. We adjust. We learn.
And we accept that nature usually knows considerably more about growing things than we do.
A diverse little Patch
Flowers aren’t the only things growing here.
Herbs, vegetables and companion plants share space amongst the flower beds, creating a garden that is productive, useful and full of life rather than rows of one single crop.
Some plants are grown for the kitchen. Some are there for the flowers. Some feed the soil. Others are planted simply because the bees seem to love them. And quite a few manage to be useful in more than one way.
That diversity is important to us. A healthy garden should hum more than a little.
Making room for the small things
Bees, hoverflies, butterflies, birds and all sorts of other tiny visitors are part of everyday life on the Patch.
So we try to give them reasons to stay.
Flowers are allowed to bloom for pollinators. Seed heads are sometimes left standing. Herbs and companion plants provide food and shelter, and we avoid the chemical shortcuts that can harm the very life we’re trying to encourage.
Our Silver Appleyard ducks make their own contribution too, wandering the Patch and helping with pests in their characteristically enthusiastic way. Occasionally they are more helpful than others, but that’s all part of it.
We aren’t trying to create a perfectly controlled ecosystem, we’re trying to grow flowers beautifully within a living one.
No chemical shortcuts
We grow without synthetic chemical sprays.
Not because it’s the easiest way. It isn’t. It means paying attention, watching for problems before they become bigger ones. Building healthy soil. Encouraging beneficial insects. Choosing varieties carefully. Accepting the occasional imperfect leaf or nibble. Sometimes it means losing something we’d hoped to grow.
But for us, flowers don’t need to be cosmetically perfect to be beautiful. A little evidence that something else lives in the garden too doesn’t bother us.
Quite the opposite.
Following the seasons
We grow what naturally belongs to the season we’re in.
There are no dahlias in June simply because somebody would quite like one, just as there are no sweet peas in March. Instead, each part of the year brings its own flowers.
Some arrive slowly. Others come all at once. And some seem to disappear almost as soon as we’ve fallen in love with them. That’s part of their beauty.
Growing seasonally means our bouquets change constantly, and every year is a little different from the one before. Rather than seeing that as a limitation, we think it’s something worth celebrating.
Small by choice
Appleyard Patch is a micro flower farm.
And we like it that way. We grow in small quantities, with succession plantings throughout the season rather than enormous fields of a single variety.
That allows us to grow a broad mix of flowers, including old-fashioned favourites, heirloom varieties and things I simply want to see growing in the garden. It also means I can stay close to what is happening.
I know when something is beginning to flower. When a bed needs attention. When a particular stem is finally ready. There is an intimacy in growing at this scale. A connection to the seasons and to the earth. I don’t ever want to lose that.
Harvested when they’re ready
Our flowers aren’t grown for a warehouse shelf or picked early because they need to survive a long journey.
They’re grown here and harvested for the people who will receive them. Often, flowers are cut only hours before I begin arranging them.
That means they can be gathered at the stage that suits the flower itself — sometimes just beginning to open, sometimes allowed a little longer on the plant.
From the Patch to the studio. From the studio into paper. And then straight on to you. Never very far at all.
Beauty without perfection
We aren’t interested in forcing every stem into the same shape.
Some flowers grow tall and straight. Others bend towards the light. Some have elegant curves, wandering tendrils or slightly wonky stems. That’s how they grew. And I think that individuality is part of what makes garden-grown flowers so beautiful.
When I arrange them, I try to keep some of that movement rather than arranging it away. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s allowing each flower to look like itself.
Always learning
Perhaps the most honest thing I can say about the way we grow is that we’re still learning.
Every season teaches us something. A variety that loves our soil. Another that absolutely doesn’t. A better way of doing something. A mistake I don’t intend to repeat. And occasionally a mistake I apparently need to make several times before the lesson sinks in.
That’s one of the things I love most about growing. There will never be a point when we know everything. So we keep watching, experimenting, adapting and trying to care for this little Patch as thoughtfully as we can, season by season.
From our soil to your hands
The flowers that leave Appleyard Patch are only one small part of a much bigger living garden.
And that’s exactly how we like it.