For everything there is a season

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.

Winter often has the appearance of peace and stillness, but beneath the frost and snow the earth is at work, preparing for the season ahead. Without the tactile nature of flowers hands often feel idle during wintertime, but patience is a virtue and what is to come holds great promise. Snowdrops are just emerging from the hard ground, their buds popping delicate angel heads, bobbing and heralding the future season.

For a flower farmer January seems an appropriate month to take stock; as Jack Frost and powdery snow have been busying themselves laying a blanket over the flower fields, time can be taken to reflect on the 2017 season and ponder the coming year. New years resolutions can often be made impulsively and hold little chance of making it to Spring, when flowers fully hit their stride again, but a few goals to take into a new season can give one purpose and energy.

As the concept of British grown flowers gathers momentum in the popular consciousness, taking time to place value and credit on your product, appreciating the uniqueness of what the flower fields of Ginger House Garden are producing, is important for the business to grow and flourish. Too much of 2017 was spent in comparing the business to others, the perils of social media playing a significant role in one’s self-doubt – ‘that bouquet is stunning, I could never do that’, ‘they are growing that, why aren’t we growing it?’ – not placing enough recognition upon the work of the last 18 months.

The 2018 flower season looms and it is time to do battle with an ingrained perfectionist tendency. Instead let us see the value in the uniqueness of every flower, of every bouquet and of every day on the farm amongst the flowers.