From field to front door

A short commute

All of our team live on the small island of St Martin's where the longest possible commute is only 3/4 of a mile to the farm. On a weekday morning by 8 am most people have arrived on foot or by bike. The office is up and running ready to take your flower orders or sort out any queries and the packing area of the shed is being set up with boxes, crates of flowers and all the packaging needed to wrap your flowers.  

Picking

Our picking team also start at 8am. Jon and his crew come into the farm shed to pick up the boxes they need to put the flowers in and fill their pockets with elastic bands to keep the bundles of flowers together. No matter what the weather, they head off around the farm looking for flowers that are at just the right stage for picking, not such a tight immature bud that it won't open and not too open that the flower's vase life is reduced. Once picked the flowers are brought into our cool stores, where they wait to be sorted and graded later in the day.

Packing

Neil and his team quite often start a little earlier on busy days in the winter, they do this to make sure all of your flowers are packed in time to make it to the mainland. The flowers are wrapped in craft paper and smart green tissue and carefully packed in our sturdy gift boxes. All the packing is completed by early afternoon when the team's attention switches to grading and sorting flowers picked on our farm and those that have come in from other island growers. 

Placing orders

Whilst all the picking and packing is going on, Ruth is in the office making sure that all your orders and emails are being dealt with efficiently. Some of our team multi-task so if you call up you will often be asked to hold the line briefly whilst they walk from the packing shed to their computer in the office. The person you speak to on the phone will be really well placed to answer any question you have as they also pack your flowers.  

Posting

Once your flowers are packed, they're put in post sacks, weighed, and taken to the quay to meet the post boat. The boat comes twice a day, once mid-morning and then early afternoon, the exact time has to vary because of the tide.  The boat takes the post to the larger island of St Mary's from where it takes a short 15min flight to Land's End airport and joins the mainland postal system. Flights are sometimes disrupted by poor visibility or storms. When this happens the post is transferred to the passenger ferry or the freight boat.  We keep a close eye on the weather to make sure that your flowers are sent by the most appropriate transport.  

Plenty of jobs

Once the post has left the island there are plenty of other jobs to do. Living on an island means we have to pick up our incoming freight from the quay. This could be anything from new farm machinery to toilet rolls. We also need to do all our own maintenance and cleaning across the farm including two holiday cottages. There is also plenty of farming to be done to ensure we're producing top quality flowers all year round and that our small herd of beef cattle is well looked after.  By 5pm most people are heading home, one person stays on for an extra half an hour to take any last minute orders and make sure the office is kept clean and tidy.  

BIG sends

At Christmas and Mother's Day we send a lot of flowers, they are after all a great gift! The way we do things changes a little to make sure we get your flowers to the mainland in good time. As we need more help to get all the flowers packed we do some packing on St Mary's. Instead of putting the flower boxes into post sacks they are carefully stacked onto pallets and travel to the mainland on the freight boat. The boat takes a little longer than the plane but the flowers are transported in the boat's chillers so they are kept fresh.    

Perfect

Your flowers will be delivered by the Royal Mail a few days after leaving the Isles of Scilly. All the flowers we send are selected as they are robust and travel well. They will have opened up a little during their journey and will benefit from being trimmed and put in fresh water as soon as possible. All our flowers are sent with easy to follow flower care tips and flower food to maximise vase life and enjoyment. Despite our best efforts very occasionally sending fresh flowers through the post does go wrong. If you ever have a problem please get in touch so that we can put any problems right.