As the seasons shift and the winter solstice approaches, we have wrapped up season 1 of our growing journey. From just one 5m x 1m old vegetable bed, we have had a sell-out season of tulips and dahlias and created our jam jars to be enjoyed on new tables too. In this first season, we experimented with blooms to grow and settled on a less is more approach. Turning our attention to season 2 we are introducing peonies to our flower garden. Three varieties to start us off, something for everyone with a creamy white, pale pink & ruby red. Tulip bulbs ordered in early summer have arrived and are yet to be planted as we create a new flower garden - progress of which has been somewhat hampered by the endless rain this autumn and early winter. With help at hand in the form of son no 2 and an impending delivery of compost, we will soon finish the beds ready for planting to begin early in the new year. The tulip collection for 2024 will see new varieties as well as some from the 2023 collection and we look forward to sharing these with you. My love affair this first season has been our dahlias. Definitely an ugly duckling with their sweet potato-like tubers, blooming into a myriad of pink, purple, orange and red blooms. The perfect cut and come again stems, with blooms available to the first of the frosts at the end of October. Our dahlias were perfect just on their own or with garden gathered ingredients in our jam jars. We also experimented with drying these wonderful blooms... what can I say but we will definitely be drying more in 2024. We used our dried dahlias in our flowers for the tables at "Citrus Coffee Shop" for a welcome pop of colour until our fresh flowers bloom again in the spring and seeds have been collected from our favourite varieties and stored in little paper bags, ready for planting in the spring too. Tubers of varieties we want to keep have been dug up, dried and packed into cardboard boxes ready for their winter sleep and as the festive season approaches, we start to think about the 2024 dahlia collection, the perfect anecdote on a gloomy day. Looking back at this first season, I have found the process of growing, creating and wrapping something for others to enjoy, immensely rewarding and I would like to thank you all for supporting me on this journey. Wishing you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy & Healthy New Year! Katherine x

With time racing away towards summer, we have welcomed and said goodbye to our first blooms from the bulbs we planted a little later than most in the winter. Our tulips were stunning - long-stemmed, long flowering and a long vase length. For our first season we chose a selection which would bloom together and sit comfortably with each other in a vase, each with their own identities - my name sake tulip Catherina, with beautiful pure white petals and strong upright stems, the palest pink peony-like Angelique with its ruffled petals and the dramatic Black Parrot with its beautiful tooth-edged petals curling like a feather. We had a handful of other varieties too including the majestic Exotic Emperor and a couple of frizzy-edged varieties. Huge success in selling our cut tulip stems wrapped in brown paper packages tied up with string and as jam-jar posies to florists, friends and new followers too. As we waved goodbye to the tulips, we said hello to the anemones - a colourful sea of reds, blues, whites and pink from the tutti-frutti mix of ugly corms. Definitely an ugly duckling blooming into a beautiful swan. We looked to the landscape around us to inspire our jam jar posies arranging with cow parsley leaves and the wildflowers of the buttercup meadows - sitting pretty like wild poppies amongst their midst. It has been a pleasure to see our blooms decorating our customers homes and being ordered as gifts. Our cut stems can be bought as wrapped bunches or as jam jar posies. Jam jar posies are the perfect gift to say 'thank you', 'happy birthday' or just to have on your table at home. We use as little packaging as possible and when you buy our blooms, everything can be recycled, composted or used again. Jam jars keep our cut stems hydrated - our blooms are cut to order from the flower garden into water, given a very long drink, arranged, and collected or delivered locally so you can enjoy the freshest flowers.

a new home for The Bulb Shed