An Update from Rebecca

Hi!

 

I love that you want to know what we have been up to over the past couple of year.  Thank you.

 

This is still a short summary, but the detail is I hope enough to provide context, without getting too boring!

 

As many of you know, I used to have a number of responsible jobs, including being an Emergency Medicine Consultant.

 

In 2023 I needed to narrow the range of activities that I was doing to protect my health.

 

First, Antony and I made a decision to do this by focusing on our wholesale work with Florists because that is where the bulk of our business is.

 

This really helped.  But it wasn’t enough to sustain our growing Flower Farm.

 

So in 2024, we took on a member of staff, 3 days a week so that we could get more done during the week and regain family time that was incredibly important to us. 

 

We now farm 1.5 acres and it’s alot of work!  The scale of the Flower Farm crept up on me.

 

2024 has been a year of consolidation.  Once Gemma started working for us, we set to work getting on top of the field whilst maintaining our wholesale orders.

 

And now, at the end of our 5th Flower Season I am incredibly pleased to say that our Flower Farming world is organised, less weedy and more efficient.

 

Finally, I should add, that Silver Grey Foliage is now my full time responsibility.

 

There have been alot of changes and so I hope that you will forgive my abscence from your inboxes.

 

 

What does this mean?

 

 

Well, the first thing to say is that Antony and I review our working plan every 3 months.  It is easier to plan in short bursts than it is to plan for longer periods.

 

Working in quarters like this also gives ups more flexibility in the business which we both like.

 

Every 3 months we have asked ourselves whether we can reintroduce our flower availability for regular customers, or as I like to say - ‘proper people’.

 

We now feel ready for this.  So the next question is, is this something that you would like?

 

A quick recap…

 

My clinical and legal ways have not fallen by the wayside, and so for the abundance of clarity, and for out newer readers, this is our potted history.

 

Antony and I have medical backgrounds and are not horticulturally trained.

 

We’ve been married since 2011 and have 2 children who in social media we refer to as The Junior Section.

 

During the process of organising the wedding flowers for a dear friend, I persuaded Antony to let me plant 20 Eucalyptus in the garden.

 

By the end of that year, Silver Grey Foliage was a registered business and we were renting half and acre of field.

 

Silver Grey Foliage is a sustainable Flower Farm.  We grow all of our flowers without chemicals and pesticides.  We only work with seasonal flowers and foliage.  And we do all of this with extremely limited covered space.

 

To be specific, we have a family sized greenhouse a very small poly tunnel.  Both of these are in our garden. And we live about 3 miles from the space that we rent in Adel.

 

When we started in 2019, we mainly sold bunches of flowers locally as subscriptions or as bouquets.

 

This season in 2024 we have cut over 100,000 stems for wholesale use by Florists in Yorkshire and around the United Kingdom.  Some of these flowers have also been sold by the main flower wholesaler in Leeds - The Flower Connection.

 

The past couple of years has seen a huge change in how our dream of a business operates.  And yet we still don’t have a van, though we desperately need one, and that we do not grow under the protection of massive poly tunnels. 

 

I am grateful that nature has been so good to us.

 

And so as we prepare for the Winter Foliage season and Spring 2025, it’s time to make sure that the seasonal flowers, that we grow sustainably here at Silver Grey Foliage are available to everyone.

 

Have a look at our Spring Flowers subscriptions here.