By Sally Sola, Founder, Cheltenham Flower School
Earlier this month, I ran two seasonal flower workshops within 48 hours of each other, one corporate event and one ticketed workshop, with a total of 25 attendees across both.
If I’m honest, I really enjoy a quick turnaround between workshops. It reminds me of my event days, where working at pace was often both more efficient and incredibly rewarding. I think my background in events has shaped the way I approach workshops: understanding how to plan at scale, put the right systems in place and deliver a high-quality experience professionally and on time.
The week before the workshops, I had a solid plan. All my vases and tools were organised, I knew the budgets for each workshop, and I contacted my usual flower farmer to place my order. Simple, right?
Unfortunately, this year the weather had other ideas. Thanks to the unpredictable Great British weather and some particularly cold nights, my usual grower had far less available in the fields than expected. When I say this was a problem, it really was a problem.
By this point we were also approaching a bank holiday weekend and quite understandably many flower farmers were trying to balance work with some well-earned time off. Between tending to their farms and catching up on emails, communication naturally became a little slower. In fact, one was communicating with me whilst she was on holiday. How amazing is that?
At that point, I had to switch fully into events planning mode and think outside the box. I contacted as many flower farmers as I could find within the Cotswolds so I could stay true to my promise of using locally grown flowers wherever possible. I also reached out to a few growers further afield, knowing that if I couldn’t source enough flowers from the Cotswolds specifically, I could hopefully still source British grown blooms. Throughout it all I had to keep faith that everything would come together. Thankfully, this wasn’t the first time in my floristry career that I’d had to solve problems at short notice.
In the end, I managed to source flowers from three growers within an hour’s drive of Cheltenham, alongside my original supplier. I sourced for the first workshop first, then the second and all the flowers were cut and collected around 24 hours before each event. They genuinely could not have been fresher.
This next point is important. In my workshop descriptions, I specify that the flowers will be local and seasonal. I don’t promise a fixed colour palette or particular flower varieties beyond that. This allows the growers to work within an agreed budget while cutting what is naturally at its best and available at the time. Had I specified exact colours or flower types, this supply issue would have become a much bigger challenge.
For me, this is why working with the seasons matters so much. It also means trusting the professionals involved, the growers and I included, to use our experience and judgement to create something beautiful with what nature provides. During that week, I also had the opportunity to meet three new flower farmers and visit some of their farms to see what was growing. I learned more about their backgrounds, their experience and the unique nature of what they produce.
One of the most fascinating things I discovered was that one farmer had peonies ready to cut, while another, only around 15 miles away and also growing outdoors rather than under cover, didn’t have theirs ready yet. That’s how unpredictable the weather has been this year.
Despite the challenges behind the scenes, both workshops were a huge success. Everyone loved that the flowers had been sourced locally and commented on how different they felt from the flowers they would normally buy or have at home. Most importantly, I stayed true to the values of my business by using locally grown flowers wherever possible.
By the end of the week, I was completely exhausted (I’m still doing all of this whilst being a Mum to 2 Neurodivergent children) but 25 people went home with beautiful seasonal arrangements filled with fresh, locally grown flowers. I also received two wonderful reviews, which honestly made my heart very happy.
The irony is that last year the problem was the complete opposite: it was so hot that both the flower farmers and I faced entirely different challenges. I wonder what the reast of the 2026 flower season will have to offer?
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