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Ep.94: Graeme Corbett on Life in Bloom: From TV to a Cutting Garden in Kent
1.7k Plays5 days ago
What does it actually look like to leave one career behind and walk into the one that's been waiting for you?
In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Graeme Corbett, the grower and storyteller behind Bloom & Burn, just weeks after the release of his brand new book Life in Bloom. Graeme spent years working in television in London, casting contestants for shows like The Voice and Celebrity Big Brother, before flowers found him. He talks about the long line of side projects that almost worked, the friend who told him to go to flower school, and the ten-year journey from a £7.50 posy at a London coffee shop to a cutting garden in Kent.
What you'll hear:
- Why he calls himself a florist first and a grower second
- How a £99 online course turned into his most powerful funnel
- The honest story of writing a book when you don't come from money
- Why "people can only say no" is the line that changed everything
If you have ever felt stuck in a career that doesn't quite fit, this one is for you.
Life in Bloom by Graeme Corbett (available in the UK and US through your local bookstore or online) https://amzn.to/3QFDCPv
Guest Bio
Graeme Corbett is the founder of Bloom & Burn, a floral design studio based on a converted cow shed in Kent, England. After ten years in television casting, he pivoted to flowers in 2016 and has since built a workshop business that draws students from around the world. His first book, Life in Bloom, was released in April 2026.
- Instagram: @bloomandburn
- Website: bloomandburnflowers.com
Sign Up For Podcast Newsletter: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.myflodesk.com/backyardbouquetpodcast
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Transcript
Intro
Graham Corbett's Journey to Floristry
00:00:54
Jennifer Gulizia
Welcome back to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Graeme Corbett, the grower and storyteller behind Bloom and Burn.
00:00:58
Graeme
Okay.
00:01:03
Jennifer Gulizia
And if you've ever spent any time on Instagram in the flower world, you have probably already wandered through Graeme's feed. There's a quietness to the way he photographs a garden that makes you feel like you've already been there.
00:01:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Graeme spent years working in television before he made his way to a cutting garden in Kent. His new book, Life in Bloom, was just released a few weeks ago, and it's already finding its way into the hands of growers and dreamers all over the world. And I cannot wait for you to hear the story behind it today.
00:01:36
Jennifer Gulizia
In this conversation, we'll talk about how he made the leap from one life to the next, what his garden has taught him, and what it actually looks like to build a life around flowers in the English countryside.
00:01:47
Jennifer Gulizia
I've been looking to this looking forward to this conversation for a while. Graeme, welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you here today.
00:01:56
Graeme
ah Thanks so much for having me and such a lovely introduction.
00:02:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, it's such an honor to get to chat with you. And I can't believe you're joining us all the way from England. And your backdrop for those watching on YouTube is so beautiful. It looks like you have some flowers in the background there.
00:02:12
Graeme
Yeah, I've got some GM from the garden here and then I'm in what is our house, which I guess in the US you would call a tiny house. It is an old cow shed that's been converted into a one bedroom house. So we live here and then the rest of the buildings are kind of falling down around us, but we're kind of safe and cocooned in here until we get the money to do what we need to out there.
00:02:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. I feel like we're in kind of the same boat just this morning. I was looking at tiny homes to put on our farm so that we can be on the property more.
From TV to Floristry: Career Transformation
00:02:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, Graeme, I would love to start at the beginning of your story. For those listeners who are not familiar with you, can you give us a quick background on who you are and what Bloom and Burn is all about?
00:02:57
Graeme
Yeah, so I started kind of 10 years ago. this is my 10 year anniversary. so fitting that the book has come out at this time. um And I worked in TV and I've told the story before, but it was kind of sheer desperation that I got into flowers.
00:03:13
Graeme
I have no connection to them. I wasn't one of those people that grew up with flowers. um I was looking the whole time in TV for something more creative to do. i tried loads of other things.
00:03:24
Graeme
I had a pickle business, um which was inspired by, yeah yeah which was inspired by a trip to the US where every meal we had the most amazing pickles.
00:03:27
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh my.
00:03:33
Graeme
So we came back and thought maybe give that a try. um ah Making pickles can be quite boring after a while though, because once you've got your recipes, it's quite repetitive. um I had a furniture flipping business. I had a candle business. So I was always trying other things and none of them really lasted more than kind of six or seven months. um And I did some flowers for a friend's birthday party and...
00:03:59
Graeme
after leaving a tv job that i really hated on a kids show of all things and that was the thing that drove me to the edge um she said why don't you go to flower school and i just thought why not let's give it a go so there was a class starting the following week i enrolled and within a few days i had left my desk in tv and was sitting at a desk in a flower school
00:04:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Unbelievable.
Influence of The Voice and Flower School
00:04:23
Jennifer Gulizia
So I'm curious, were you acting in TV? Were you doing the production? What was your role with TV?
00:04:29
Graeme
So my role was casting producer. So I was finding contestants for reality TV shows, things like Celebrity Big Brother and The Voice, which I know you've got in the US as well.
00:04:42
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:04:42
Graeme
So yeah, it was mainly kind of talent shows, reality shows, that kind of thing. So a lot of time spent standing on the street, hassling people saying, hey, do you want to be on TV?
00:04:52
Graeme
That was kind of, that was what I did for a living, yeah.
00:04:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay. At what point then did you start realizing that you were being pulled away from television and you wanted to do something else? You mentioned there was that child casting thing, but did you feel something building up for a while?
00:05:09
Graeme
Yeah, I think, you know, when you work on a show like The Voice, you are confronted every day with people that have got a real true passion. Now, whether they're any good at it or not, that's not for me to say. We saw a lot of different skill sets over the years, but what I loved by those auditions was regardless of whether they were a great singer or not, they all loved what they were doing.
00:05:31
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you.
00:05:37
Graeme
And they they had decided that this was the thing they wanted to pursue in life. And that just gave me a bit of a push to think, maybe there's something else that you could be doing.
00:05:48
Graeme
Because, you know, it was a great job. It paid well. It was really fun. You were working on big teams. There was always people around. It was really buzzy. um but there was just something missing for me creatively. Yeah.
00:06:02
Jennifer Gulizia
And so then you started trying out other things. And I love it because you were in a role that was having people audition for one specific thing. And you took that mindset and applied it to your life for auditioning for a whole bunch of different roles to see what stuck.
00:06:18
Graeme
Yeah. And there were moments when I thought, oh, you know, i would go into work and people would say, what did you do at the weekend? i saying oh I was on my market stall selling my pickles. And I could see them kind of thinking, oh, what is this guy doing? It's like, this is just a long line in stuff that he's tried and none of it's kind of worked out. And then the next thing was, oh, yeah, I'm going to flower school. And it was just, I think people were like, okay, another thing. But There were moments in all of that when I thought, you know, is any of this going to work or am I just kind of trying anything?
Early Floral Experiences and Discoveries
00:06:50
Graeme
And, um, but I think without trying all those things, I probably wouldn't have landed on flowers. So in the moment it felt a bit kind of, I don't know, I felt quite defeated sometimes, but it was worth it in the end, you know, got to try stuff.
00:07:07
Jennifer Gulizia
And you tried putting flowers together for a birthday party. Is that correct?
00:07:12
Graeme
Yeah, I've still got pictures of it. I arranged them in um whatever I had around the heist. So there's one picture of like a little bunch of flowers in a Spice Girls mug that says scary baby ginger posh 40 on the side.
00:07:23
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, my.
00:07:27
Graeme
um So yeah, I mean, they weren't great. And also I cut everything like super short and everything was kind of the same height. So they were quite kind of square. There was no, you know, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was enjoying it and it was...
00:07:42
Graeme
it was enough to then when my friend said why don't you go to flower school for me to think okay it's not totally crazy idea
00:07:51
Jennifer Gulizia
Now, I'm curious, ask asking a friend who's been trying a bunch of different things to make arrangements for a birthday is kind of random. do Were you a gardener before that? Or how did they happen to approach you for the flower opportunity?
00:08:07
Graeme
No, I wasn't a gardener. I mean, I was always someone who was like doing creative stuff. So on the weekends, while a lot of my friends were kind of going to nightclubs and doing all that, you know, I'd already had a partner for quite a few years and we enjoyed like cooking and, you know, baking and all the that kind of stuff. And I have lots of God kids and ah i would all show up to their birthday parties with a homemade cake. And, you know, I was like making little cake toppers and all that kind of stuff. So I was always trying to be creative in any, any which way that I could.
00:08:37
Graeme
So I think she just kind of thought, oh, well, he's got a bit of an eye for design or he's got a bit of style, so maybe he can do the flowers.
00:08:43
Jennifer Gulizia
ah
00:08:46
Graeme
And, you know, i think we spent like 40 quid or something. We went to a market stall in Camden, outside Camden tube station, and I picked up the flowers from there and, you know, it was pretty simple, but it was, you know, that was the beginning of it I guess.
00:08:51
Jennifer Gulizia
you
00:09:01
Jennifer Gulizia
It was that first seed that was planted for you.
00:09:04
Graeme
Yeah, totally.
00:09:06
Jennifer Gulizia
So you did this birthday party and you enrolled in a flower school. Talk about that flower school. what like What were your thoughts when you enrolled? Did you partly think I'm crazy for doing this or were you excited? How did you feel?
00:09:22
Graeme
id I'd had such a bad time on that kids show that I was just glad to be out of it. And I'd literally just got up from my desk and walked out and then sent them an email afterwards saying, i don't want to do this anymore. um So it was a moment of, okay, I've got to do something else. I can't just take another TV contract. So...
00:09:42
Jennifer Gulizia
you
00:09:42
Graeme
When I looked online and I find this class and it was, you know, it's the cheapest one available. So that was what was attractive about it. um And also it was starting the following week. So it just felt like, oh maybe everything's just kind of falling into place. So let's just go with it and and see what happens. um And, you know, I've said this before, this style probably wasn't,
00:10:04
Graeme
perfect for me but what I did get to learn was all the basics um and then when I left there I ended up doing work experience with a florist that you know that was when I really fell in love with flowers I worked for a company called Jam Jar Flowers and they were the ones that kind of showed me different ways of arranging a more kind of loose, natural, garden inspired style.
00:10:26
Graeme
Whereas the flower school was much tighter. we used a lot of oasis, you know, there was no discussion of where the flowers were coming from. um But, you know, that was 10 years ago. And so I think a lot of schools were using that approach then anyway.
00:10:39
Jennifer Gulizia
aha It's definitely changed a lot in the last 10 years, the local flower movement.
00:10:45
Graeme
Yeah, totally. And, you know, I don't think it was until I got to Jam Jar where I even kind of thought about that. I didn't put two and two together. It was just, I need flowers.
00:10:56
Graeme
I go to the wholesaler. And I didn't even think really where they were coming from. And I know now that that is like a kind of really ignorant thing to have done. And and I should have been doing more research. But...
00:11:08
Graeme
You know, I came out of flower school and just thought, of great, I've got this new skill and it's exciting. And I didn't really think to dig any deeper, to be honest.
Skills Beyond Flowers: Business and Media
00:11:18
Jennifer Gulizia
I think most people don't. I don't think that's, I think that's probably normal people. I mean, you were following a thread from a birthday party to a flower school to working for a florist. I mean, that's quite a jump from working with kids on TV.
00:11:33
Graeme
Yeah, exactly.
00:11:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Um,
00:11:34
Graeme
um So yeah, and and I think I also felt like, well, I've paid quite a lot of money, even though it was one of the cheaper classes in London, it was still a two week course, it was still expensive.
00:11:45
Graeme
So I think in my head, I thought, well, I've paid to be taught. So surely they've taught me everything I need to know, and I'm ready to go. And of course, you know, that's not the reality. But in my head, that's what I was thinking.
00:11:58
Jennifer Gulizia
So you learned a lot, thought you were ready to go out. And then did you learn otherwise working for this florist?
00:12:05
Graeme
Oh yeah, that was like a real wake up call because, you know, rightly so, the owner, Melissa, was very um protective of her flowers. You know, she wouldn't let me just go and make arrangements right at the beginning because she was saying, you don't have enough experience and that peony has cost me three pounds of stem. I'm not suddenly going to let you loose on it. So I did a lot of things like driving the van,
00:12:31
Graeme
I did the contract flowers, which was putting a single flower in a bottle in a pub. And that was on a Monday and we drove around kind of nine pubs in London in this van. um And then I washed a lot of buckets and I swept the floor and I lit the fire and, you know, it was all those kind of things. And then every so often it was okay.
00:12:50
Graeme
here's a moment to learn something about design. But what she was doing the whole time was teaching you all the background stuff that you do need to know in order to run any kind of flower business.
00:13:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Which I think is so good because I had a job shortly after college where I was thrown into kind of middle management without knowing all the underlayers and trying to manage people without those skill sets was incredibly challenging. And so what a gift that she actually gave you that even though it wasn't the glamorous work, you have to learn how to do those things.
00:13:28
Graeme
Yeah, and I think, you know, my very first conversation with her was on the phone and, you know, I started saying, I've been to flower school and I love flowers and she just cut me off and went, okay, that's great. I've got a million people like you. What else can you offer?
00:13:41
Graeme
What have you been doing before? you know, what other skills can you bring to the table? So i was saying to her, worked in TV and she was saying, okay, so can you write because we need help with proposals and all these other things. So suddenly she started to see, okay, there's another thing here. And I think that's what I would advise florists to do when they're approaching studios or shops shop florists, you know, for work experiences. Like, don't just say I love flowers because there's so many people that have got that thing. What else can you bring? Are you great at social media? Are you great at photography? Can you help do something else that is going to benefit that business more than just another person that wants to do the flowers because you know as melissa said then and still now it's easy to find those people but finding people that have got the drive to do the other bits that aren't as attractive is hard
00:14:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. That's so true. For my farm, we do a working interview and we start with the unglamorous stuff. I mean, we're carrying stuff around and we're pulling weeds and moving drip lines and fixing irrigation leaks. And I get, I work alongside them and it's a paid working interview. And I ask them questions to try and pull those things out.
00:14:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Because like you said, there was a million people applying for that job that you wanted, but what sets you apart. I think that is such a great thing that you brought up.
00:15:07
Graeme
Yeah. And it could be something really small. And I'm sure when you do those working trials, like some people just fall away quite quickly, right? Because they realize there's lots of things I haven't thought about. They haven't thought about being outside when it's hot or cold, you know, the but how backbreaking it is and and the amount of physical work involved. I think that's what people don't understand it about floristry. It's like super physical job and it's, you know, it takes its toll.
00:15:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, absolutely. People see the Instagram photos and our listeners are those that are out in the field and have their hands dirty so they know what we're talking about. But so many people see those Instagram photos and say, oh, it must be so amazing to work with flowers. I want to play with flowers all day.
00:15:52
Jennifer Gulizia
And then they're like, wait, it's not all holding flowers and arranging them. There's other stuff too. Or the weather. i remember one of my hires sent me a text and said, it's raining today. are we going to...
00:16:04
Jennifer Gulizia
when should we start or will we not work today? And I'm like, oh we work rain or shine. It's.
00:16:09
Graeme
Yeah, it's
Building a Floristry Business: Challenges and Growth
00:16:10
Graeme
happening. Yeah.
00:16:11
Jennifer Gulizia
Yeah.
00:16:11
Graeme
And I think I've had people come to workshops who I had one woman who said to me, oh I think you're being quite negative about the industry. And I said, I'm not trying to be negative at all. But what I'm trying to say to you is,
00:16:23
Graeme
your idea of the industry is very different to the reality so if you think you can just come in and make loads of money doing a couple of weddings like that isn't the reality like you're gonna have to do a lot of weddings to build up to get to a certain level before you can start charging better money before you can start making more profit so it's not just as simple as like yeah arranging some nice flowers and and there you go um But, you know, and she's since been in touch to say, you know, I appreciate actually that did help me to put a business plan together and make better choices.
00:16:59
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes. Well, I'm curious. So you started at this florist shop. Did your career grow? How did your career grow from there? Uh-huh.
00:17:07
Graeme
I mean, I was kind of there for nine months and, you know, we did everything from weddings to kind of brand activations. And we had this gorgeous restaurant that we did and we had this kind of cool kind of celebrity hangout that we did called the Chiltern Fire Heist that we crept into in the middle of the night to refresh the flowers. So none of the famous people would see us. um So there was really fun bits to it along the way. And then We were getting towards kind of January and the owner said, look, you know, January is pretty lean. There's not much work around. And I kind of said to her, I've been thinking of setting up on my own. And she was saying, oh, I thought that was going to kind of happen.
00:17:44
Graeme
And look, it was way too early. I didn't know what I was doing. You know, I hadn't had enough or hands-on experience with the flowers, but I was just ready to kind of give it a go. And, you know, the first couple of years were really tough and I didn't really make any money, but I learned a lot along the way, which was good.
00:18:03
Jennifer Gulizia
So after nine months, you went out on your own.
00:18:06
Graeme
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:07
Jennifer Gulizia
That's amazing.
00:18:07
Graeme
yeah
00:18:08
Jennifer Gulizia
You started your own design business. And i love that you said that the first few years were tough and you didn't make a lot of money because people think that the money comes right away, but it's an investment.
00:18:11
Graeme
Yeah.
00:18:20
Jennifer Gulizia
It's time. Time is an investment also that people don't realize that it takes both on the growing flowers and the floristry side. It doesn't always come right away, the money.
00:18:32
Graeme
No, I know, you know, I was working, we lived in a one bedroom apartment in London. i was working from the kitchen table. i was driving to the market in the middle of the night because the London market opens at like three in the morning. um i was buying my little flowers and then I was selling posies for, I think it was like £9 or £7.50 maybe. at the local coffee shop that was my very first gig um and you know you don't get many flowers for seven pounds fifty especially if you have to add a markup so I was basically giving them away um but from there then people liked the flowers that i was selecting and I started to get some weddings and things so it started to kind of build up this other side of the business from there
00:19:14
Jennifer Gulizia
So you were marketing yourself at that early coffee shop or bake. Did you say coffee shop or bakery?
00:19:19
Graeme
Yeah, it was coffee shop. And, you know, their whole thing was like, we'd love to have flowers, but we don't want to take away from the spend on the coffee and the food. So they have to be under £10. And I think we landed on this random number of £7.50. So they were like little posies with like five or six stems wrapped in like brine paper. And I had this like little vintage... um like milk bottle crates and I put them all in the milk bottles and they sat on a little ledge outside the shop. But they, you know, they sold out pretty much every week and, you know, it was fun. It was a good way to get started, you know.
00:19:57
Jennifer Gulizia
you have to get your name out there when you're just getting started that's so important that visibility
00:20:02
Graeme
Yeah, totally. And, you know, I think we all say, oh, you should never do anything for free and you shouldn't, you should always be making a profit. But, yeah, It's so hard at the beginning. So, you know, and we, I think every florist has done it where they've like taken on a job that like didn't make enough money or they've done something that, you know, they weren't really making a return on. But if you don't do it, you don't, you don't learn and you, you, it's very, very hard to grow. um but you know, I do always say to people who come to the workshops, it's like price accordingly and try your best to make money. But it's really hard when you're just trying to get your first kind of couple of gigs.
00:20:39
Jennifer Gulizia
So you started out going to the market, selling in this little coffee shop, and then you started getting referrals. Is that when your business kind of took off or what was the trajectory?
00:20:50
Graeme
Yeah, it went pretty quickly to the point where I was doing maybe 40 to 50 weddings a year um in London. um But I was, you know, I was small scale. I was doing weddings for like less than 100 people.
00:21:05
Graeme
i could manage them on my own. i very rarely had to bring in a team member or, you know, the only thing I had to do was like, you know, hiring vans was something I had to do pretty often because my car just didn't fit enough stuff. um But they were small and i then just kind of exhausted myself of them, you know, after doing those for kind of four or five years, um I just wanted to do something else. And that's when other florists started asking for workshops because I'd kind of been doing quite well on Instagram and I'd managed to kind of build up a kind of online profile, which I think other people were seeing and were like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder if he could teach me how he's kind of got to that stage because everything was like,
00:21:50
Graeme
super makeshift you know i worked in the flat for quite a while and then we moved to a house but even then i started working in like the box bedroom so like the small bedroom i had a little desk in there and i did everything from there and then i graduated from there to a garage around the back of the house but none of it was kind of glamorous or gorgeous it was all kind of make do and i think that was one of the things that made it attractive to people it's like You know, because I'm not from money, you know, I'm from a kind of pretty normal background. So, you know, showing people that you could kind of do quite a lot with whatever you had, i think that was what was attractive to people.
00:22:29
Jennifer Gulizia
I think it's so much more relatable and it adds that authenticity because going back to like the pretty pictures on Instagram, that's not always reality. But so when someone sees you in that little corner office or that little desk, it's like, oh, well, I could create that same space for myself.
00:22:47
Jennifer Gulizia
And it gives them permission to chase their dream also because they see that you're doing that without the big grandiose
00:22:50
Graeme
Thank
00:22:56
Jennifer Gulizia
scale that we often think we need to have before we can start.
00:23:02
Graeme
Yeah, absolutely. And I think when I moved here, you know, I suddenly had this gorgeous studio and people weren't coming the first year. And I think I slightly lost that thing of being like super relatable because I was like working in my leaky garage. And then suddenly it's like, oh, come to my kind of gorgeous, shabby, chic, beautifully styled country retreat. You know, it it was quite a shift.
00:23:29
Jennifer Gulizia
How did you make that shift? How did you go from the tiny little space to your gorgeous new countryside space?
Country Living and Workshop Evolution
00:23:36
Graeme
Well, we, you know, like a lot of people in London, COVID hit and you realize that all those things that you think you're living in London for, the theaters and the parks and the restaurants, you just don't miss them. But what you're missing is open space. You're missing being able to go for a walk in a park that takes longer than half an hour to walk around. um So we just suddenly thought, oh maybe this is our moment and to leave. And we find this place online and we came to see it during one of the, um when they lifted one of the lockdowns and we just totally fell in love with it. And we just went for it and, you know, managed to get it. And, you know, it is a small space that this bit we're in at the minute is is effectively a tiny home, but there's another three buildings that are all waiting to be renovated. So we knew that it would grow at some point, but, you know, five years later, we're still in this small space and actually really loving
00:24:33
Graeme
that kind of tiny living of having to think if you bring something in, something has to go. And, um you know, it's great. And the the workshop is a brilliant space, but, you know, it's got kind of mold on the floor and it leaks a bit and it it looks great on camera, but in real life, it's pretty drafty. And, you know, it's not, it it kind of, yeah, it's not perfect, but it looks great in pictures and people love coming to it.
00:25:02
Jennifer Gulizia
So people come to your house for these workshops.
00:25:05
Graeme
Yeah, so the studio is on on the property. so people come, I pick them up from the station if they're not driving because there's no public transport here. um And i bring them to the workshop. We do a full day workshop with a bit of lunch in the middle. And then I drop them back at the station at the end of the day and they can be back in London in an hour.
00:25:27
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. So it's one day workshop. How many people typically come to the workshop?
00:25:32
Graeme
It's normally a one-to-one and actually we've just started the renovation on our buildings here.
00:25:34
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:25:37
Graeme
So I've actually moved to a local Victorian walled garden and they've given me a beautiful space there, which is very similar in style to what I've got here. So I don't think people are going to be too upset when, you know, they come to something that looks very similar.
00:25:52
Graeme
And now the added bonus is we've got access to ah Victorian walled garden, which is also a flower farm. So, you know,
00:25:59
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, wow.
00:26:00
Graeme
and that's it's it's a pretty good um switch yeah
00:26:04
Jennifer Gulizia
So are you able to cut your own flowers that you're arranging with now?
00:26:08
Graeme
yeah so i've got a cutting garden here which is on the property here and then i have the walled garden that they let me cut from and then i've got another grower around the corner called blue hen flowers and again she just lets me cut what i want uh because a lot of the stuff that i'm cutting you know it is for a one-day workshop and part of that workshop is getting really gorgeous photography so effectively sometimes my growers say to me you're basically deadheading for us and then paying for it because I want everything super open I want things that are like you know really blousey and really kind of you know getting to the stage where they're on their last legs because that's when they photograph the best
00:26:36
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, no.
00:26:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Uh-huh.
00:26:48
Jennifer Gulizia
It's interesting that you say that because as a grower, most of my wholesale business is for weddings and events. And so I've had to learn because I've picked up some What do you call them?
00:26:59
Jennifer Gulizia
More of like the retail storefront florists that are selling for everyday orders. And they have to be harvested at that beginning stage so that the customer gets to enjoy the whole life cycle. But with the weddings and events, they need everything fully open.
00:27:11
Jennifer Gulizia
If I give them something in bud form, they don't have time to wait for it to open.
00:27:12
Graeme
Thank
00:27:15
Jennifer Gulizia
So I'm harvesting at that stage that you're talking about. So it's fun to hear you talk about that.
00:27:21
Graeme
Yeah, so yeah, because I ah used to bump into this florist called Frida Kim, this amazing florist in London at the market when I used to to the market and she was buying, she was doing workshops before a lot of other people and she was buying stuff like a week or a week and a half out from the workshop because she wanted everything like perfectly open. So, you know, at the market everything was tight in buds so she was having to plan so far ahead. And I'm really lucky here. I don't have to do that because yeah, the growers just let me in with my little buckets and my scissors and I just do a little head count as I go along and send them a list.
00:27:58
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so cool. And what what a great convenience for them. They don't even have to harvest it.
00:28:03
Graeme
Yeah, so, you know, i think I've built up really good relationships with them with both of my growers. So they're very happy for me just to go in and, um you know, cut what I want because they are, you know, they've got to know my taste and my style. But um sometimes there'll be something that they haven't thought of that I'd see and they're like, well, that's just a weed. But I'll be like...
00:28:25
Graeme
the most gorgeous weed I've ever seen I'm taking it um and the walled garden also has like a kind of vegetable patch and there's really interesting things there that at different points of the year have interesting kind of flowers so you know we were using some kind of was like a purple sprouting broccoli that had a kind of yellow flower on last week so there's things that they maybe wouldn't think that I would be interested in so having the freedom to kind of wander around and just pick as I go is really good
00:28:53
Jennifer Gulizia
So I have a really off topic question for you. The walled garden, is that the name of a farm or is that in Britain what you use to describe a certain kind of garden?
00:29:04
Graeme
So, yeah, so in Britain, we do have a lot of walled gardens. So, you know, maybe classically they would have been attached to a large house. So this one in particular is attached to a very large kind of house that has been turned into a private school.
00:29:19
Graeme
um And then at some point it was all separated i and the walled garden is now this kind of um separate entity.
00:29:19
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:29:28
Graeme
So they live on the property in a small kind of carety caretaker's, what would have been a caretaker's cottage. And their walled garden is called Water Lane because of the lane it's on is called Water Lane.
00:29:40
Graeme
So they they are there and um Yeah, but we have lots of kind of walled gardens here um that you can go and visit. And it was something that people often had because it would keep kind of rabbits and things out.
00:29:54
Graeme
So it was a way of containing and protecting the flowers and the vegetables for the for the main house, basically.
00:29:55
Jennifer Gulizia
Okay.
00:30:02
Jennifer Gulizia
So it's completely walled in.
00:30:04
Graeme
Yeah.
00:30:05
Jennifer Gulizia
oh wow. It's like a secret garden.
00:30:08
Graeme
It's like a secret garden and then along the walls they might be growing things like, um you know, they'll have their fruit trees and things trained along the walls or, um you know, this particular wall garden has got and four Victorian glass houses which have all been used for different things at different stages. So at the moment they're growing their poppies in there because they just love the heat of the glass size. All of their butterfly rinoculars are being grown in those glass houses. And then they've got a whole glass house that is just full of strawberries. um So it's really kind of amazing place to be able to now take my workshop guests and give them a little glimpse inside the garden.
Relationships with Growers and Creative Freedom
00:30:43
Graeme
Yeah.
00:30:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow, you're going to have a whole bunch of flower farmers in the U.S. wanting to come visit. Sounds incredible.
00:30:49
Graeme
or or to Or to build walls. Yeah.
00:30:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Yes, I'm like, hmm, I bet I could put some walls up at my farm. ah That's so cool. Thank you for explaining that. I love that you were talking about your relationship that you have built with the farmers there.
00:31:04
Jennifer Gulizia
Most of my listeners are either gardeners or farmers. How can we build better relationships with our florists? I love how you mentioned that you found that weed that they're like, oh, that's just a weed. And you're like, that's really beautiful.
00:31:18
Jennifer Gulizia
How do we work with you better?
00:31:21
Graeme
I think, you know, there's the convenience, isn't there, to go into the wholesale market. um And not so many of the wholesalers are selling stuff online and you can get pictures of everything. And I think what Ian has done really brilliantly at the wall garden is um he takes pictures of every single stem. So he's got a little setup with a backdrop. And when he's harvesting, he just takes a picture of the stem and then he puts that into his library. So he'll send out, uh,
00:31:48
Graeme
you know, ah a list on a Monday, but it has a picture of every single flower. So you can see what you're getting. And he'll also put the stem length and stuff on. So I think that really helps. It's like, it's quite a lot of admin to get it all set up.
00:31:59
Graeme
But once you've got that stock of images, then it's it's quite good to have.
00:32:00
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:32:04
Graeme
um And I think something that's come over here from the US is and this idea of hubs. So we've now got a local hub, which has got a lot of the local growers all selling into one place. So you know, for the florists who say, I can't use local because it's too many pickups, suddenly they've now got another option. So I think that's all really helpful. And yeah, just, you know, building community and getting to know the people that are buying your flowers, then you get to know their taste. And, you know, and I think my, there was a flower farm in London, which is when I first got into locally grown flowers and they were quite good at kind of
00:32:41
Graeme
not forcing me, but gently persuading me that maybe I should try some stuff that I thought I didn't like, you know?
00:32:50
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. It's always fun to give something to a florist and be like, try this. And they're like, I don't want to use that. And then they're like, oh, can you add a couple more? Or can I have 10 bunches of that next week? And you're like, oh it worked.
00:33:00
Graeme
Yeah, that's why it becomes your absolute favorite thing because I think, you know, the problem with the wholesale market for me is we all end up just with a shopping list because the the way it's set up here is it's so early in the morning.
00:33:14
Graeme
that you just want to get in and get out again. So you're maybe, well, I find for me, I was definitely just looking at it in quite a kind of practical way of like, okay, write my list, get take it off and get back on. And maybe I wasn't looking around enough to find more interesting things. And maybe I went into working with local growers with that mindset and it was them kind of educating me on maybe try those colors you don't like, or maybe try those stems that you think you don't like, because you know, ah a locally grown version of that flower that you think you hate is actually a very different thing.
Global Influence and Online Success
00:33:50
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Now I'm curious, what is a flower that a farmer has turned you on to that you didn't think you would like to use?
00:33:57
Graeme
So, I mean, Wolves Lane were, it was colour with them. Like, I would say, I don't like red, I don't like yellow. And one week they're like, it's just red or yellow. And I was like, I don't want it. And they're like, well, then you can't have anything. So I took it and they had those sylvestrous tulips.
00:34:14
Graeme
and you know, those species tulips, which I then just totally fell in love with. So and it was things like that, or, you know, I discovered things like annual flocks, which I'd never seen before. I'd only ever seen the tall flocks that you get at the wholesalers that are like dead straight and often in not the nicest kind of colours.
00:34:26
Jennifer Gulizia
i'm gonna
00:34:30
Graeme
So it was, they were turning me onto like little things
00:34:35
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that you're working with the local farmers in your area and that you're doing these workshops besides workshops. What else does your business look like these days? What's your model?
00:34:45
Graeme
I mean, it is really workshops. You know, I think for me, the most important thing after coming from a life in TV where, you know, my job on The Voice would be to find contestants and I would go to open mic nights. I would go to music schools. I would go and meet buskers on the street. I would go anywhere there would there would be somebody playing music basically. And I would find these people and I would fall in love with them. And I would think,
00:35:11
Graeme
They've got the most amazing voice. They've got to get on the show. But once I get back to the office, I would hand those people over and then somebody else would take them further or not. And then I would start again on the road. um So I felt sometimes like that loss of kind of...
00:35:31
Graeme
ownership of a project or never really getting to see it through fully. um And I think when I got into flowers, that was the thing that I didn't want to lose was I didn't want to, and I could see it happening with the weddings. I didn't want to just be someone who was doing the admin to facilitate other people getting hands on time with the flowers. um and And the way that that seems to have worked best for me is by doing the workshops.
00:35:56
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. So how many workshops do you think you host a year?
00:36:00
Graeme
and I don't know. I mean, I try in in the season, I try to do two a week. So that's two one-to-ones a week. But then other things come up, like next week I'm going to France and I'm doing a group workshop there. And then I go straight from there to Yorkshire for another group workshop. And, you know, I've done stuff in America. I've been to Mexico. I've been to Italy. You know, so...
00:36:21
Graeme
I can kind of pepper it with bigger things that maybe pay slightly more. And then the one-to-ones here are kind of my kind of bread and butter, I guess. They're the main main you know they're the main business. And then everything else is a kind of nice added extra.
00:36:37
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. That's so cool that you get to travel all over the world teaching your workshops too.
00:36:43
Graeme
Yeah, and it's great because I'm connecting with people who are doing what I'm doing, but just in a different country. So they're using sustainable mechanics. They're using local flowers. um So, you know, the kind of flying bit is a bit strange, I guess, because of the carbon footprint and and all that kind of stuff. But I guess once I get there, the education is very much about use what you have got locally. Don't worry about trying to cover the thing that somebody else has because you've got great things here too that maybe you need to...
00:37:13
Graeme
you know, look at again or look at in a different way.
00:37:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Have any of those international workshops shifted the way you do things back home?
00:37:23
Graeme
um
00:37:26
Graeme
same I think they've opened my eyes to flowers that I maybe thought I didn't like. Like when I went to Mexico, we used the most incredible lisianthus I've ever seen. Whereas lisianthus here, like they're just not the same. They're smaller, the colors, we don't have quite as wide a range of colors, i don't think. um So that was something that I really loved. Also just seeing the way the flowers are sold and presented in different places, you know, going to New York and seeing them surrounded by all of those huge buildings. And then you've just got this kind of weird little district of people selling flowers on the street and cars just pulling up and loading up. And because the market in London is, you know, it's quite self-contained. You drive in, there's a car park. It's like all under one roof. So, you know, and in Mexico, they're pulling in the trucks and people are buying off the back of the trucks that are just loaded to the top with flowers. So I think that's been...
00:38:23
Graeme
The most interesting bit for me is to see how different countries approach selling flowers in different ways.
00:38:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Uh-huh. It's so good to see that. I know that when we bought our or our current farm, we went to New Zealand and we went to the South Island and we toured around at different regenerative flower farms. And it was really eye-opening because you think, oh, we're really progressive in certain things. and then you're like, yeah.
00:38:47
Jennifer Gulizia
these people are so much further ahead than us in these areas. And then you can bring these ideas back. And that's one of the things I love about this podcast is getting to talk to people around the world because we get to implement and hear these ideas of amazing things that others are doing that we might not have otherwise been introduced to.
00:39:07
Graeme
Yeah, it's been it's been, you know, I think when i started getting people messaging me from China or from America saying I want to come for a one-to-one, like that was never in the plan. I really thought I would move to and the countryside and it would be local people who had gardens that would want to come and learn a couple of new techniques. But...
00:39:29
Graeme
Those people have grown up with gardens and gardening and floristry. So they don't really want to learn any new tips or maybe the style that I'm doing isn't doesn't quite fit. So I think that was why the first year was quite hard because I think the business model that that I'd come up with actually wasn't the thing that was going to work in the end.
00:39:51
Jennifer Gulizia
That's so good that you say that because I think a lot of people have an idea in their mind and they dive in with that without testing the waters first. So what was it? Did you have to talk to people? How did you know that you needed to refine your offerings?
00:40:06
Graeme
The first year that I got here, I had this email from a company called Domestika, which is an online learning platform based in Spain. um And they were offering to do a floristry online workshop that could be downloaded anywhere in the world and i'd wanted to do something like that for a long time but every time i tried to cost it it was just going to be too expensive and the product at the end was going to be just way too expensive people could have come to a physical workshop for probably the same price so i kind of put myself out there
00:40:40
Graeme
because I'm quite um an anxious person, quite uncomfortable in front of a camera. um So it was quite a big leap for me to do that. And, you know, I spent kind of three months writing the course and then I went to London. We shot it in about a week, I think. And then it went up online. And so far it's been downloaded like 13,000 times, I think it is. um because it's it's very affordable. Like it's always on sale. I mean, they say it's 60 pounds. It's never been 60 pounds. I think at the minute it's like 99p. But what that did was it gave people an accessible way to learn from me. And I think a lot of the people that started coming, when I asked them how they'd heard it about me, it was either Instagram or they'd taken the class online. So, you know, while it maybe didn't pay the most money and I worried,
00:41:30
Graeme
at the beginning that maybe I've made a terrible decision because the a percentage that you get from each download is minuscule.
00:41:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:41:40
Graeme
But playing the long game, it's a lot of people are coming that have done that course. So, you know, that was the big change, I
Publishing Life in Bloom: Process and Challenges
00:41:48
Graeme
guess. That was the big thing that really turned everything around.
00:41:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. It's so important to have those kind of funnels where someone, sometimes you have to have something that gets someone in the door, a reason for them to want to engage with you. And so like, I'm trying to think for our listeners, some of those examples, because most of my listeners probably are not florists, but if they're a farmer, maybe it's a how-to guide for their CSA customers on how to make their flowers last longer you what to do or how to arrange their, I'm struggling with ideas here, how to arrange their spring flowers.
00:42:21
Graeme
Just
00:42:26
Jennifer Gulizia
Or for me, I was just thinking about making a guide for flowers to grow, to complete your dahlia arrangements. So like what complimentary flowers. And so then I get people and in order for them to get that guide or that that course, they have to give an email or some way to stay in touch with you.
00:42:45
Jennifer Gulizia
And that allows them to then get into your funnel and into your world oftentimes. Is that making sense?
00:42:52
Graeme
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think it's all about trying to make connections. And i think what you're saying there is like really interesting. And what we all need to think about now is like, I don't think we can rely on Instagram in the same way that we all did. So actually creating other channels like a newsletter or getting people's details where you can connect with them directly. i think that is really important to kind of build up those channels as well, because Instagram is just changing so much at the moment that it's hard to keep up with.
00:43:20
Graeme
um and And I feel for me, I'm definitely losing that connection with people on there because it seems to all be about getting you out to new followers and kind of ignoring the people that are already following you.
00:43:32
Graeme
Yeah.
00:43:33
Jennifer Gulizia
Totally.
00:43:34
Graeme
yeah
00:43:35
Jennifer Gulizia
Well, you have a great thing that hit the world. ah Your gift to the world would be your new book that came out, which is a great way for people to connect with you. Let's talk about, you wrote a book called Life in Bloom. Is that correct?
00:43:49
Graeme
That's correct. Yeah. And it's been the thing that I wanted to do right from the beginning. So, you know, going to flower school was a big investment for me. And when I came out the other side, having not kind of learned the style that I maybe would have wanted, it was flower books that I was buying to kind of help me learn and I was practicing all the time and it was looking at flower books. You know, I was looking at things like Pinterest and Instagram, but flower books were definitely the thing that I was getting a lot of my tips from.
00:44:20
Graeme
So yeah, right from the beginning, I was like, I want a flower book. That's, that's the goal. Yeah.
00:44:26
Jennifer Gulizia
So you knew immediately that you were going to someday write a book?
00:44:30
Graeme
Well, look, I knew I wanted to write a book.
00:44:32
Jennifer Gulizia
You wanted to.
00:44:32
Graeme
I didn't, yeah, I didn't think it would ever happen. And, you know, i spent years building up that Instagram thinking if I just hit this next number, if I just get this amount of followers, someone is going to give me that book and nobody ever did.
00:44:48
Graeme
So, you know, two and a half years ago, i decided, okay, that's the goal that I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to at least try is his what I thought. Yeah.
00:44:59
Jennifer Gulizia
So I love what you just said that you were waiting for someone to come to you and it didn't happen because I think so often we're waiting for that sign, that perfect moment.
00:45:09
Jennifer Gulizia
And if we just sit there and wait, nothing happens, but you did something that puts you into action. So what, what changed? How did you get that book deal?
00:45:18
Graeme
Well, I mean, to be completely honest, I googled how to write a lifestyle book because I didn't know what else to do. So um I found a template online and I filled it in. And that's what I did. And I managed to get an agent because I thought,
00:45:36
Graeme
I can't approach publishers on my own because I don't know how that works.
00:45:40
Jennifer Gulizia
Mm-hmm.
00:45:40
Graeme
So I thought my goal is to get an agent. So I managed to get an agent um and I presented him with my proposal made on my little template. And it was a lot of things like, you know, what's your Instagram following?
00:45:53
Graeme
Give us all your social stats. Where have you been traveling? Where have you been teaching? Like justify that you've got an audience that may be interested in this thing. And and then the rest of it was like,
00:46:04
Graeme
providing loads of pictures, a breakdown of um the kind of chapters, so what it kind of look like, and then it was three or four sample chapters. So, you know, you didn't need to write a whole book. It was just give people a sense of your style of writing and and a sense of what the book could look like and what it's going to do for people. um And yeah, so I got this agent, we pitched it, we got interest from two companies. um One of them said, look, we've got someone pretty similar. So go with the other company. If they pull out for any reason, come back to us. But we think you'd be better with someone that doesn't have somebody similar. So yeah, that all happened kind of, I think I signed the deal to April two years ago. yeah
00:46:47
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. So you put this whole book together in two years.
00:46:51
Graeme
Yeah, and no disrespect to people that work in publishing, but there were points when I thought, surely there must be a faster way. But, you know, right at the beginning, I offered them up. I said, look, I've got thousands and thousands of flower images. We could use those and...
00:47:08
Graeme
you know, just right around them and we could do something quick. And they were saying, no no, no, we would love all brand new images. What if we do all brand new images? We give you a year in the garden to really write through the seasons. um So that's that's what we did.
00:47:23
Graeme
Yeah.
00:47:24
Jennifer Gulizia
Wow, so you had a year to write and photograph all new pictures for the book.
00:47:29
Graeme
yeah
00:47:29
Jennifer Gulizia
Who did you write this book for?
00:47:32
Graeme
I wrote it really for the people like me who are maybe coming at this with not loads of money behind them, you know, um and education in floristry and gardening is really expensive. And here in the UK, we definitely have a kind of class divide as well. um And there are certain things and groups that I have not been...
00:47:55
Graeme
welcomed into because of my background and where I come from. So I really wanted to make a really super practical guide that is accessible for people, um, you know, affordable and is not kind of holding anything back. So I'm giving you all the mechanics that i use day to day. I'm giving you the step-by-steps. I'm giving you, um images to illustrate those as well. Um,
00:48:21
Graeme
You know, so I'm hoping that I'm giving people the tools to not just replicate the the images that I created, but giving them the freedom to focus on finding flowers local to their area and putting their own spin on those arrangements. But the mechanics are solid and they're going to work, you know.
00:48:39
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. What is your favorite part of the book?
00:48:43
Graeme
I don't know. mean, to be completely honest with you, there's been moments when I've hated this book. You see people opening their books on Instagram and crying. had quite a kind of...
00:48:56
Graeme
opposite reaction the first time I held the book I was almost repelled by it because it had been so long in the making and everything I've done has been on Instagram where if something doesn't go right you can just delete it and move on but here was this physical thing that I i didn't quite think the process through i didn't really think about the moment when I'd have to say to people
00:49:01
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, no.
00:49:21
Graeme
This is this thing that I've poured so much love and, you know, tears and worry into. And now it's yours to kind of judge. I didn't think about that bit. um And that has been very difficult for me. The last few months have been quite difficult just getting my head around it. And there's a lot of publicity you have to do and you have to keep pushing it the whole time. And, you know, I'm quite insecure about my work. I'm quite insecure about my skill set. So, um,
00:49:51
Graeme
having to kind of try and convince people to buy something that they haven't seen before was quite uncomfortable for me to be completely honest um but i got into this point of just like spending time with the book which sounds ridiculous but i would force myself to kind of look at it again and and also you're seeing it in a different way like when i look at it on the pdf it looks different because it's backlit and the photos are more kind of luminous, they're brighter. Whereas in the book, you know, we've printed it on a kind of um nice kind of tactile textured paper. So the colors aren't quite the same. So I'm looking at two kind of different things and having to kind of bring them together. um
00:50:34
Graeme
So, yeah, I think if anyone out there wants to write a book, like it's it's quite an interesting journey, shall I say.
00:50:44
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. Well, what do you want readers to take away from this book? I mean, it's a beautiful book that you have poured your heart into.
00:50:50
Graeme
Thank
00:50:52
Jennifer Gulizia
And it's hard to put yourself out there. I mean, when I share stories on this podcast, I'm always thinking, how am I going to be judged? And so it's it's hard anytime you share something that you have poured so much love into. But I think that people open it and appreciate the honesty and the authenticity and see how much care and effort you put into your work. So what what do you want them to take away from this book?
00:51:17
Graeme
Yeah, I think that's it. I think, you know, the feedback that I've got so far has been so nice. Like people are saying, I can really hear your voice in the book and I feel like you're being like super open. And I think that's what I've always kind of got through Instagram is people kind of like the...
00:51:33
Graeme
you know sometimes i'll share that it's not as easy as we all make it look you know it is it's really difficult and it's a tough industry but ultimately if you've got the love for it and the passion for it you know it's worth kind of pushing through those really hard times because there's so many rewards in this industry so i think i just want to give people confidence to like whatever space you've got where wherever you're coming from you can have a career in flowers and it might not be the thing that you think it is because I certainly didn't think at the beginning that I would be releasing a book and teaching workshops to people from all over the world. That was not anything that was ever told to me. So I think I want people to feel like this industry is limitless in a way, you know, if you really want to do something in it,
00:52:19
Graeme
you can make that happen and you can find your own little niche, which is what I've kind of done. um But yeah, I'm super proud of it. You know, I can look at it now and be really... happy about it. And I think it was the anticipation of it coming out. And now that it's out and people have seen it, I just feel like so much better about it because I just feel like, okay, it can kind of find its own way now and people can make their own opinion about it. But yeah, there was definitely something slightly uncomfortable for me selling something that nobody knew if they really wanted because they hadn't really seen anything.
00:52:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Sure. Well, thank you so much for your honesty there. i love that you've shared today about how you've transitioned from the television world to being a florist and surrounded by flowers.
00:52:57
Graeme
Thank you.
Advice for Aspiring Florists
00:53:04
Jennifer Gulizia
There's a lot of people in the world who feel stuck in their careers and are scared to make a big life change like you did. What would you tell someone right now who's standing where you once were wondering if they have the courage to walk away?
00:53:17
Graeme
I think, you know, we've all got moments in our week where there's probably a little window of time that we can kind of claw back for something just for ourselves. So that's what I was doing when I worked in TV. I was taking the weekends to try something new. So, you know, don't put yourself in a, we don't, it doesn't always have to be a big leap where it feels like you're risking everything.
00:53:39
Graeme
you can take your time with things and, you know, don't put too much pressure on it. Like give yourself a bit of a moment to, you know, let something kind of grow and see if there's something there. And if that doesn't work out, try something else. Like don't feel defeated because one thing didn't work.
00:53:58
Graeme
And, you know, you might have to try coming at things in several different ways. But if you've, if you're really feeling stuck in the thing that you're doing, it is worth giving up half of your Saturday to pursue something else, because it's almost that thing of like, what can you do today to make,
00:54:18
Graeme
next year or the year after better for you if you're not super happy in what you're doing right now if you don't start to make those little changes then that big change might not ever happen um so i think try and take the fear out of it so you don't need to do a big kind of a big jump you can do little things that then lead to a bigger thing further down the line maybe
00:54:40
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that you're planting that seed and watering it and watching it grow as, as you tend to it.
00:54:47
Graeme
Yeah, and and that's what I've had to learn. You know, I am a florist first and a grower second. And when I started growing, I did not like it at all. It takes so long and anything can just knock out all that work. But the more that you do it, the more you fall in love with it. And the rewards are so brilliant that it's worth the losses along the way.
00:55:09
Graeme
And I think that's the same with anything. Like it's it's not always going to be perfect and there are things that are going to go wrong, but if you really want something, you've got to try and push through those really difficult times.
00:55:20
Jennifer Gulizia
That's such great advice. I love it. Graeme, we've talked about a lot today. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to share with our listeners today?
00:55:31
Graeme
I don't think so. I think, you know, I've just really appreciated the time and your really thoughtful questions. And, you know, I guess my thing is like,
00:55:43
Graeme
just because I don't come from this world doesn't mean that I can't be part of it. So don't feel that any door is kind of closed to you. um You know, you can kind of make your way and it might not always be the route that you think it's going to be. Like I went to university to learn film studies, but I dropped out of the course because I got offered a job on a reception desk at a TV company.
00:56:06
Graeme
And that was my way in. so I got the thing that I wanted, but I had to go a slightly different way, Ryan. So, you know, if you're getting a lot of no's, there might be another way that you can kind of come at it and, you know, ask for help. People can only say no. I think that's the thing that I'm terrible at is asking for help. um So, yeah, I would say to people, you know, just put yourself out there and and ask for help and people can only say no. And,
00:56:32
Graeme
It doesn't become a big part of their day. It might feel like a big thing to you, but if they don't want to do it, they just move on. um But somebody might give you the time and might give you that little bit of information that you need to get to the next stage.
Q&A and Closing Connections
00:56:45
Jennifer Gulizia
I love that. Thank you. That's such great advice. Well, Graeme, what I have been doing at the end of the episodes this year is a series of quick fire questions. So I'm going to ask you four quick questions here.
00:56:56
Jennifer Gulizia
And the first one is what is your favorite flower to grow or work with?
00:56:57
Graeme
Great.
00:57:01
Jennifer Gulizia
And perhaps why?
00:57:04
Graeme
I think I've talked about this already. It's Phlox. I love them, you know, ah cherry caramel, creme brulee. I just think they're indispensable for me when, when they start flowering because they just look great in so many things and they go with everything.
00:57:21
Jennifer Gulizia
Makes me want to add them back to my list. I haven't grown those for a few years. Why do local flowers matter to you?
00:57:29
Graeme
I think they they've definitely changed the way that I design. you know, i I don't think i would have a book if I had continued working with imported flowers because I just think they've opened me up to so many more varieties, so many more ways of working with flowers. um And they've also given me much more respect for the product because i understand how hard it is to grow them now. um And I also... um you know, I just love the personality they give you. They make arranging easier, well for me anyway, because they are doing so much of the work anyway by the way that they move.
00:58:10
Jennifer Gulizia
Awesome. What is one thing you wish more people understood about the floral industry?
00:58:17
Graeme
i wish people understood how hard it is you know, i wish there was yeah a bit more understanding from You know, there's there's a lot of things that we hear online, isn't there? Like, oh, as soon as you say it's flowers for a wedding, they add a zero or, you know, people always asking florists to do stuff for free because, oh we must just love our job so much. But, you know, i think we're all trying to make a living and that should be respected for for anyone. Just because our product is beautiful doesn't mean that the behind the scenes isn't kind of messy, right?
00:58:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh, that is so good because so many people have a hard time spending money on flowers. I love what you just said there. Okay, last one. What are you most grateful for that flowers have given you beyond the blooms?
00:59:12
Graeme
I think they've given me a life that I never thought I could have. um So they've given me a life here in the countryside with my partner. I was always a city person. My goal in life was to move to London.
00:59:24
Graeme
i did that. I thought I'd be there forever. um You know, we've now got like chickens and dogs and two miniature horses. You know, those are all things that I never expected to have.
00:59:32
Jennifer Gulizia
Oh.
00:59:35
Graeme
um So it's given me a lifestyle. Yeah, it's a lifestyle that I would never have dreamed of. And it's hard work and it's frustrating sometimes, but it's ultimately rewarding to be able to be surrounded by nature all day.
00:59:52
Jennifer Gulizia
Absolutely. I think that's what keeps us all in this industry. Where can people find you and follow your work?
01:00:00
Graeme
So they can find me online. So on Instagram, it's at bloomandburn. And then my website is bloomandburnflowers.com. So those are the two main places. I'm too old for TikTok. I tried it. I can't make it work. So yeah, those are the two places that i show up most often.
01:00:17
Jennifer Gulizia
Amazing. And what about where can people get your book?
01:00:21
Graeme
So the book is, has the book has been released in the UK and the US, so you can get it online. and Your local bookstore should be able to order it in for you. And we are, i believe, a German version is coming with a translation. and We're working on other translations and we're working on it being released in a couple of other countries as well. So, you know, hopefully it will, over the year, find its way to more places. But I'm seeing a popping up all over the place. So I think you can order online and get it delivered pretty much anywhere at the moment. Yeah.
01:00:56
Jennifer Gulizia
Thank you. We'll include links to your web website and social media and the book in today's show notes. Graeme, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been such an honor to chat with you and maybe someday I'll be lucky enough to make my way out there to have a workshop on your amazing property there.
01:01:14
Graeme
Oh yeah, and then you can you can go to the walled garden, you can see how that works. We're also sandwiched between Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, which are very famous gardens here. So, you know, you can have a very flowery few days just around here.
01:01:27
Jennifer Gulizia
It would be amazing. We have a side note. I'm carrying on here. We have a brewery in our town called Kings and Daughters, and it's a brewer and photographer artist that spent some time in the UK.
01:01:39
Jennifer Gulizia
And they just opened a tasting pub here, and it's called the Walled Garden. So that was what sparked my curiosity earlier.
01:01:45
Graeme
Oh, wow.
01:01:46
Jennifer Gulizia
i was like, oh, is it named after the garden you're talking about? But it sounds like it could be one of many Walled Gardens. Yeah.
01:01:53
Graeme
It could be one of many, yeah. yeah yeah There's loads of them, yeah.
01:01:57
Jennifer Gulizia
So amazing. Well, this was such an amazing conversation. Thanks so much for your time. And ah if anything changes or you have any new exciting news to share with us, you're always welcome back on the podcast.
01:02:09
Graeme
Thank you so much for having me. It's been really, really lovely talking with you.
01:02:13
Jennifer Gulizia
Likewise, have a wonderful day. Thanks, Graeme,
01:02:16
Graeme
Take care.