Milli Proust
Debrah J Flowers
Swallows & Damsons
Photos by Rona Wheeldon
Meet the florists
Debrah J Flowers
Founder of Debrah J Flowers, Jennifer started her career as a wedding stylist but found herself increasingly captivated by the floral aspect of design and discovered a natural ability to create stunning and individual displays. Every arrangement she creates is a reflection of her dedication to showcase the delicate balance of colours, textures, and forms found in nature, a way to share the enchanting diversity of flowers and plants with others.
Jennifer takes pride in sourcing flowers responsibly, supporting local growers, and minimizing environmental impact. It’s a small but meaningful step towards a greener and more ethical future.
Hamish Powell
Hamish Powell is a multidisciplinary floral artist and apostle of plants, with an atelier on the bank of the River Thames in central London. A background in botanical science forms the foundation of his work, met with the juxtaposed fashion and art worlds, he seeks to radically reawaken our lost connection to nature through beauty.
If not choreographing the flowers, he is writing about them; floristry and poetry are two different routes to the same destination – emotional expression. Hamish’s work appears in editorials, fashion events and gallery exhibitions across the world, and his thirst for our cultural diversities of floral obsession has plunged him in artist residencies from Singapore to Australia to Tanzania and beyond.
LUNARIA
Deborah Bain is a floral artist and designer. She is the founder and creative director of LUNARIA, a floral studio and cutting garden based near Bruton, Somerset.
Recognised for her artful compositions and sculptural designs, which often defy gravity on a large scale, her work consistently explores form, movement, texture and tonal contrast with refinement and impact. With a decade-long background in interiors and exhibitions she blends her expertise into floristry and horticulture to transform space mixing living plants, cut flowers and dried materials from nature.
With a cutting garden supplying much of her materials, she celebrates British flowers and true seasonality, Her passion for sustainability drives her to exclude floral foam and minimise imports, opting instead for homegrown stems into often handcrafted subframes and innovative solutions for concealed mechanics.
Milli Proust of Alma Proust Studio
Inspired by how plants grow in the garden and in the wild, Milli Proust works with the ingredients she cultivates at her flower farm in West Sussex, creating romantic and playful designs that reflect the seasons for weddings, events, brands, customers, and personal clients.
She works alongside her business partner Paris under the name ALMA|PROUST, growing flowers for florists and for their own event work. The stems are grown in rhythm with nature, with long-term sustainability at the forefront of every decision they make. They run a specialty seed shop alongside their design studio, with varieties chosen that have unique colours, are wildlife friendly or have great scent.
Swallows & Damsons
Anna Potter is an author and co-founder of Swallows & Damsons, a Sheffield based flower shop. Swallows & Damsons opened its doors in 2008 and has remained a little flower shop in the heart of the community, whilst designing and teaching worldwide for clients including Gucci, Architectural Digest, Domino magazine, Food 52, Harper’s Bazaar, The Telegraph, Gardens Illustrated and Town & Country Magazine. Anna has also authored two bestselling books, The Flower Fix and Flower Philosophy.
Known for bringing an unexpected and uniquely wild feel to floristry, Anna moves beyond the confines of blooms in floral decoration, incorporating a wealth of natural products and curiosities. Celebrating imperfections, subtlety in colour and form in her designs, with inspiration from the rich darkness of Dutch still life paintings, Swallows & Damsons are modern day influencers in a new wave of floral art and design.
From field to florist
Uniting florists, flower growers and flower lovers, British Flowers Week was founded in 2013 by New Covent Garden Market, the UK’s premier flower supplier. This year the mantle of managing the campaign has been handed to Flowers from the Farm, the industry body promoting small-scale growers of local, seasonal, British cut flowers. Flowers from the Farm, with a membership of more than 1000 flower businesses across the UK, is uniquely placed to lead the industry-wide campaign to increase the share of the UK market occupied by flowers grown in this country.
The florists taking part in the Garden Museum’s exhibition will bring their designs to life by sourcing seasonal blooms grown by suppliers in the Flowers From the Farm network, championing the whole of the British flower supply chain from field to florist.
Blooming Green flower farm photo by Matilda Delves
Flowers from the Farm
