Rothbury Roots & Shoots
Flower Farmer / Florist
Rothbury, Northumberland
At Rothbury Roots & Shoots we grow seasonal, sustainable, local flowers from seed & bulb, in our home garden. We have 2 polytunnels & 2 greenhouses, alongside lots of raised beds, vertical growing frames and pack in lots of other growing areas in pockets of the garden, without affecting the family areas.
We dream of finding an acre of farmland to buy to expand our growing potential and to offer pick your own flowers on site, and we would especially like to expand the opportunity for more wellbeing visits, but unfortunately haven't found it yet. Hopefully one day !
As we grow in our home garden, visitors are not currently able to come and see where we grow. It is strictly by appointment, due to it being our family space.
To grow all our flowers, we use organic practices in order to keep our little corner of Rothbury a thriving eco system for the wildlife, insects & mammals that visit our growing space and grow a wide range of flowers, fruit, vegetables & grasses in order to help keep this unique micro habitat and climate as active as possible.
We have planted mixed hedging around the perimeter so that the wildlife have fantastic cosy nesting spaces, with plenty of berries & material for their nests, with nature log piles providing safe spaces for others.
It is amazing to see how many varieties of birds, moths, butterflies & pollinating insects we have here.
I grow alongside our daughter, known affectionately by all as The Head Gardener. She has been sowing seeds for our flowers, microgreens, fruit and veg since she was 12mths old and absolutely loves growing almost as much as me. At such a young age, her knowledge of both the latin / botanical names of flowers & herbs is just amazing to see. Not content with growing, she also studies the flowers & leaves under our microscope, makes tinctures with the flowers & herbs, uses them as objects for still life drawing and insists on having fresh flowers indoors all year round.
We often have groups of local children round to learn how to grow from seed, to pick flowers to arrange, and make bird feeders etc...The Head Gardener loves teaching others how to thrive.
We primarily grow flowers for local wedding florists both in this area, and the outskirts of Newcastle. We grow and sell subscription flowers, bouquets, grave arrangements and DIY wedding buckets, for brides who love local whimsical flowers and want to design their own wedding. We also offer bridal bouquets, buttonholes and centrepieces to order.
All our arrangements & centrepieces, grave arrangements etc... are made using reusable and compostable materials, we do not use any floral foam because of the chemicals they leave behind.
Our bud vases, hand tied posies, bouquets, grave arrangments are a carefully curated mix of our own seasonal flowers and foliage, designed to give you as much scent, colour and whimsical texture as possible throughout the seasons. We are passionate at using our flowers for as much of the year as possible, so our main season is April - October, however we always have flowers and foliage throughout the whole year to ensure our pollinators are looked after fully with food sources.
Alongside growing flowers to sell, we also believe in gifting some of our flowers to local people and throughout the years of growing the business we have continued to donate flowers to others.
Despite growing flowers, veg & microgreens for over 25 years, we have only been growing in Rothbury for the last 10 years and only offering our flowers professionally in the last 5 years.
I cannot do full servce weddings at present as I grow alongside being a full time stay at home mother and full time carer to my mother in law with Alzheimers.
We do a lot of charity support work also and recently supported the Parkinson's charity, working with the fantastic physio Sam Dixon of Local Motion Physiotherapy. We will be doing a special event in the spring together also, so get in touch if you would like to know more.
We will hopefully have our first flowers available in March, in the form of Narcissi & Tulips, followed by Ranunculus, Colibri poppies & Anenomes, but the main season will start in April.
If you would like to know more about what we do, or to order flowers from us between April - October, please send us an email with your enquiry and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Thanks Claire & The Head Gardener
