New Beginnings: How It All Started

Mar 5

4 min read

It feels like more and more of us reach a point in life where we stop and think… is this actually making me happy?

For me, the answer was always pretty simple. My happy place has always been outdoors, and more specifically, in the garden. But this journey didn’t start in Staffordshire, or even in the UK. It started over a decade ago, on the other side of the world.

Where it all began

I found myself in Australia, working in organic vegetable gardens, growing everything from tropical fruits to sweet potatoes. It was one of those places that didn’t quite feel real - with free-roaming chickens, long days in the sunshine, and a creek to swim in at the end of it all. What began as a chance opportunity to volunteer turned out to be one of the biggest turning points in my life. Very quickly, I realised - this is how I want to live.

Finding our way home

After several incredible years travelling, my husband and I decided it was time to come home and put down roots of our own. We bought our first home in Cheshire - a complete wreck from auction (the kind most people would run a mile from… and yes, it even ended up on Homes Under the Hammer).

What followed was five long years of renovating, almost entirely by ourselves. My husband is a carpenter, which helped massively, but it was still a huge undertaking, and at times felt like it might never end. The garden was very much an afterthought; we were living in what felt like a permanent building site, and renovating outside wasn’t exactly a priority when you don’t have a functioning kitchen.

A small garden with big possibilities

Before this, we’d spent years travelling and living in a campervan, so even that small terrace garden felt like a huge opportunity. Although we didn’t have the time or energy to renovate it properly at first, it became my space to experiment and escape the chaos of what was happening inside.

I squeezed vegetables into every corner, built slightly questionable temporary structures including a greenhouse on our flat roof!, and started growing things I’d never tried before. It wasn’t perfect (far from it), but it was mine, and I learned so much.

Eventually, once the house was finished, I could finally turn my attention to the garden properly. What started as a neglected little space became something completely transformed - and I’ll be sharing some before-and-after photos because it still surprises me how much it changed. Even then, the bigger dream of living off the land and starting something of my own still felt a long way off.

From a crammed experimental space, to a curated calm wildlife garden.

A turning point

Then Covid hit, and like so many people, everything shifted. I stopped working in hospitality and suddenly had the space to rethink things. I decided to properly invest in learning and enrolled to study horticulture. Gardening can be a slow process when you’re learning season by season (and occasionally learning the same lesson more than once), so I wanted to speed things up and really understand both the practical and the theory. From propagation and plant names to pruning fruit trees, everything started to click into place - or at least make a bit more sense.

Learning the trade

During this time, I found work at a wonderful garden and nursery, starting as a propagator and later becoming a gardener. At this time, I thought I wanted to run my own nursery , and so this was a great place to learn how to. But over time, that idea shifted. I realised I was drawn more to the detail - the shapes, textures, and fleeting nature of flowers (and possibly the fact they’re slightly less demanding than an entire nursery full of potted plants). That’s when the idea of growing flowers really began to take hold.

Where I am now

After a lot of searching, we finally found the right space. I’m now based in the Staffordshire countryside, working on setting up a flower farm on just under an acre. The plan is to grow and sell dried flowers, mainly for weddings and events, alongside growing plenty of fruit and vegetables for ourselves.

This year is all about building the foundations - there’s a greenhouse to put up, beds to create, and spaces to figure out for fruit and veg (likely involving some form of netting to keep the wildlife at bay). I’m also renovating outbuildings that will become a workspace for drying, storing, and creating with the flowers.

Alongside all of that, I’m setting up an online shop, and of course - growing a huge range of flowers and vegetables, mostly from seed. It’s a big project and very much a work in progress, but it’s the start of something I’ve been working towards for a long time.

Why we started this blog

My sister Kate and I live very different gardening lives. I’ve got space to experiment (and plenty of challenges that come with that) while Kate gardens in a terrace house in London, making the most of every inch and creating a space her whole family can enjoy - proving you don’t need a field to grow something beautiful. Over the years, we’ve shared tips, successes, failures, and plenty of “why isn’t this growing?!” moments. So we thought, why not share that with you too?

This blog is for anyone who wants to grow something, no matter the size of your space. Whether you’ve got a windowsill, a balcony, or a field, we want to make gardening feel accessible, enjoyable, and a little less overwhelming. We’ll be sharing what we learn along the way - the wins, the mistakes, and everything in between. And if you’ve got questions, we’d love to hear them.