Hallyard’s Flowers

20/07/2025

How to harvest sunflowers for the most vase length!

02/07/2025

So it turns out that straw daisies are very much the over achiever of the dried flower world. First time growing them and they are spectacular. I hope lots of people fancy pink Christmas wreaths this year!!

22/06/2025

First of the sweet peas!

The recent hot weather has bought the first blooms of sweet peas which are now filling my kitchen with the most amazing scent.

Few tips for you!

The more you pick the more they flower! Make sure that you pick pick pick and at least once a week go through and take all the flowers and buds. If you let them set seed they will stop flowering. Pop the ones that have gone over in the compost and put the rest in the house. The buds will open up in the vase.

If you find they have small black thunder bugs, or thrips on them ( their beauty and scent attracts them) pop the vase in a dark shed with a window or dark room with a window and they should leave the flowers in an hour or so.

Put them somewhere where you can appreciate their scent!

15/06/2025

And after playing about for a bit - the jug was definitely the right vase for the job in the end. Not many flowers at the moment, but both the cornflower and nigella will open up in the next few days weaving their glorious blues into the arrangement. For me - I love it. Natural and beautiful.

15/06/2025

This is the ‘shove them in a vase’ technique. Highly technical! I will do a video later in the season on how to create a hand tied bouquet.

15/06/2025

‘Conditioning’ is just a posh word for cleaning off the stems and letting them sit in fresh water for an hour or so ( or even overnight). This lets the flowers take up lots of water so they are ready for arranging.

15/06/2025

Such a flattering camera angle! Who needs fancy things to hold your phone when you can rest it on a bamboo cane!!

15/06/2025

Who is ready to pick some flowers and enjoy them in the house?? It has been a funny start to the season, with little flowering, but in preparation for the rest of the season here follows some videos on what I do to cut and arrange for the house. I’m sure I don’t do it ‘correctly’ or ‘properly’ but these tips have served me right so far!

Prepare yourself for lots of cats stealing the limelight!

09/06/2025

Self seeded poppies proving a big hit with the local bees! So many different types of bee getting their breakfast!

27/05/2025

11/05/2025

08/05/2025

Had a helper planting the cucumbers inside the greenhouse this evening!!

It’s getting to the time of year when I like to play a game of chicken with the last frosts. We had one a couple of days ago, and we could still have more but the lack of space in the greenhouse is dictating that more and more plants are going outside into the beds.

It is unbelievably dry - so much so I have had to get the hose out as one of my massive water butts is empty already. Make sure you keep watering in any plants outside. Give them a good soak once a week, rather than a little bit every night.

I’m going to do a little direct sowing this weekend so I’ll do a little video for you!