Thank You!!

 ..we are in the final countdown to Christmas....we are sorry that the posts have been pretty thin on the ground lately....the madness started on the 29th November and is still going.......we are so immensely grateful to all our fabulous customers who come into our little shop and tell us they love it....thank you for supporting your local independent florist, whether you are a regular, an occasional or a once while passing through visitor we want to wish you and all those you hold dear a most fabulous Christmas....and hope that all your dreams come true....
 With much love from Martin, Emma  & Kay....xxx

bouquets and jelly moulds

 our penultimate wedding of the year..... a gorgeous wild array of rannunculus, scented roses and heather 

rose  heart wreaths on the door before the spruce and berries take over......

 the winding down of our garden.....grapes left for the blackbirds.. and just another 80 roses to plant.....

 part of our store of vintage pots, jelly moulds and other eclectic containers......

 all waiting for the martin & the magpie magic......

and one we made earlier........

how are your Christmas preparations going?

To every season......

The seasons have moved on......
this is the last bouquet I picked from the walled garden.......

 We can't quite believe the bounty we have had this year while only really experimenting with 'growing our own'.....the first hard frost a week or so ago finished all that......

but here we are and the first of next years crop already sprouted and growing on....

 we are seeing the first of the spring flowers coming in....I know its November....but that is the flower industry..slightly ahead of ourselves...we are selling out of potted hyacinths every week so I guess everybody is ready for the change of season too!!

It is one of the humbling things about being a florist in a small town..you get to see all the milestones of peoples lives...the joys and the sorrows.......

'to everything there is a  season......

a time to sow.....

a time to reap.....

a time to dance.......

a time to mourn...........

a time of war...

a time of peace......

turn, turn, turn...............'

The 'C' word

I know it's a tad early...However I know how excited you all get about our Christmas (there I said it!) wreath course, so we are offering two dates this year.

Do you fancy making your door wreath? or a fabulous floral table wreath?

We will give you a tutorial on both and you can decide which you would like to have a go at. 

We hope you are able to join us and surround yourself with floral beauty & lots of festive cheer!

If you are interested please feel free to phone us on; 01488 681062

email us on; martinandthemagpie@hotmail.co.uk

or comment on here and we will get in touch

The days go by.......

 (baby pumpkins and vintage finds)

 (Dried leaf wreath..what a tongue twister!!)

(gorgeous rich autumn colours)

 (last blooms of summer from the garden)

(what more sunflowers!!)

.......so fast and we have been very lapse on the blogging front......facebook and instagram are taking over!!!...do follow us on both if you can, you will get a daily heads up on whats occuring in our floral and gardening lives.......
needless to say we are surrounded by the beauty of autumn..glorious colours of flowers.....stunning berries and foliage's not to mention our home grown pumpkins......
in the garden we are planting and sowing like mad things for next year..already rannunculus and anemones are in....seedlings of stocks and larkspur, cornflowers and scabious are waving their little leaves at us....the foxgloves, hollyhocks and delphiniums we planted this year for next years flowering are good strong plants now and we have our finger crossed they survive the winter.

Our heads are now turning to winter......our stock for Christmas is ordered..we are already wiring cinnamon and oranges for our wreaths in an attempt not to run out, which we did last year..we are wondering if anyone out there wants to attend a Christmas wreath making course?? .....
But first we have Halloween.....a window display to design......our 3rd Birthday!!.....a new website...........the list goes on....x

musette & more

 last week...vintage cut glass........musette roses........a wedding here.......

the surprise of the weekend.....

 the clearing of the old hot house revealed grapes....rather sour and with pips.....

today wonderful English garden (our garden!!) flowers in divine antique glass..

...finding foliage and seed heads in the autumnal hedgerows...

...keeping our fingers crossed the poly tunnel doesn't blow away.....

...playing with flowers for images to go on our new website....

.....pippins donuts......

Give us a clue.......

our lovely old walled garden was a clue a few weeks ago in the telegraphs general knowledge crossword.....always attempted hardly ever finished, but this was one clue we all knew.....

Every day we thank our good fortune to have been allowed to grow our flowers on this famous piece of land.......

 more than once in the early morning or still sunlit evening we have felt that maybe we are not alone here...

and that the late Harry Dodson is watching us and shaking his head in despair at our flowery attempts!!!!

Playtime!

 We have recently been asked to make a Carmen rose bouquet for a bride of ours ....not something we get asked for every week..so we decided to sharpen up our rusty Carmen rose making technique! 
There is a lot of wiring involved......but some of us really like wiring........we practiced on lovely red roses from the garden.......

 ..we all decided it looked fab.....and incredibly, it lasted really well.

seeking inspiration on pinterest we happened upon flower jewelry........in as long as it took the glue gun to warm up these were made....

 I managed to snap them before our Monday girl took them home!!

The dark flower is 'Black Knight' scabious from the garden......it's so beautiful......

flower repeat flower

...our sweet peas just keep on flowering.......

we bought this little miniature wardrobe a few weeks ago and just can't decide whether to re-paint it...

what would you do?

Hello sunshine

Oh you beauty... In your sunshine patch, growing at a lightening speed. You are worth the work!

Hello sunshine...Hello Red Eclipse 

Mix & Match

we spend our days creating........the summer has been good to us,,,,,,,,our tentative start in flower farming has been a steep learning curve but we are so pleased we have grown flowers we can sell...they are mixed in with our normal lovely stock of flowers....but there is a small joy in seeing them there....

the next beauties to flower.......sunflower red ruby...can't wait to see her!!

Splendid Succulents

             

An order for fifty planted succulents in terracotta pots makes for a pretty photo shoot!

             

I got a little carried away...

             

I love the writing on some of the pots. There was 'marrow' 'kale' '& melon'...sounds like an interesting potting shed to me. 

             

Some moss and a few shells work a treat on these. I wish I could have taken them all home!

             

Harvest Festival

When we took on this massive walled garden of ours, we knew that it was originally the kitchen garden for the 'Big House' on the estate. However we didnt realise in the bleak midwinter when we saw it, just how much it is still producing. Bearing in mind the land has had no-one working on it for 8 years. Mother nature still amazes us. We have started to harvest the small amount of veg we have, however it seem this earth is good to the humble fruit n veg.... 

                              

One whole wall once had trained fruit trees...however they have broken out of their restrictive wires and have been allowed to create mayhem... they are amazingly full of fruit, each tree seems to be a different variety of pear. The 'Big House' must have loved Pears!!

                           

                              

This building would have been the hot fruit house....it has the most amazing grape vine going through it...the acid green is neon at the moment. The fig trees grow 3 foot through the plastic roof, tantalizing us with is huge fruit, which we will be unable to reach to pick. 

                              

There are blackberries, a whole coffee cup here...craving apple and blackberry crumble anyone?

                             

Our little onion patch turned out to produce 91 white onions and 116 red onions....how long do you think they will last us? Stunned by the amount is an understatement.

The youngest member of the team, eats more than he picks...he had peas from the pod today...they were a huge hit. These stringless beans are tastier cooked however, but the teething toddler disagrees.

                             

Mazie, can you see their tufty heads peeking through? Martin doesn't like it...hahaha more for us then :)

                             

Our lazy tomatoes, and the colour pop of marigolds in the petit polytunnels

                            

Talking of colour...look at these red beauties! They are perfect for mash.

                           

                             

I think Christmas presents will be pretty predictable this year

Red onion marmalade? Yummy.