Welcome to Jan's blog

I love late summer. You can feel the change of season early in the morning, and a sunny day is apparent, but it arrives like an elderly person rising from an armchair.

I arrived home a few days ago, during the showery weather and spotted this lovely rainbow. I quickly leashed the dogs & went in [...]

I have the lovely Kumiko, from Japan, working with me at the moment. She has just attained a degree in Textile Design from Central St. Martin’s, which is situated opposite our shop. She’s been asking me about the history of Stems, and my experiences in the business. This has brought back lots of happy memories for [...]

 We were delighted to provide the flowers for a ruby wedding anniversary lunch at Chelsea Physic Garden a couple of weeks ago. We used hydrangea, Black Baccara roses, pink lisianthus, eryngium thistle and lavender, myrtle & lauristina from our garden. What a fabulous venue for a party!

Next weekend, it’s flowers for a wedding at the [...]

I’m really looking forward to getting back into the flowers again. I’ll miss the dogs, and I’m sure they’ll miss their long walks by the river. I have had the flowers in my garden to play with, but I’ve missed the wonderful flowers at the shop.

Being a florist in Central London, I’ve noticed how much [...]

We had a lovely lunch with friends in the garden one sunny Sunday afternoon, and decided to have a plate garden competition. We used anything we could find – sweet peas, nasturtiums, hollyhocks, mint, lavender, curry plant, grass, ivy, virginia creeper, blueberries, stones, sticks  – even firelighters & foil! Hanna’s plate was beautiful, with blueberries [...]

Our bouquets now contain lavender & lemon mint, spearmint or garden mint. They smell wonderful!

A lady phoned a few days ago to ask what it was in her bouquet, and to tell us that she’sd been adding it to all her cooking during the week. She said everything tasted great. We identified it as lemon [...]

 I’ve been picking herbs & foliage from the garden to add to our bouquets this week – rosemary, curry plant, lemon mint, spearmint, garden mint, rosemary, myrtle, lauristina and lavender.

Having given up the allotment, I’m quite pleased with my herb & vegetable collection which I have in pots on the patio. The purple sprouting broccoli [...]

Why not send some beautiful flowers to someone? It’s the best gift on earth! When the situation dictates tact, when someone’s feeling fragile, when words can’t express the emotion – flowers are just the best.

Sean’s in hospital at the moment, and the wards don’t accept flowers anymore. many people don’t realise the the habits of [...]

 What beautiful weather we’ve had lately. We spend all weekend in the garden. The honeysuckle is climbing up the old laburnum tree, the aliums and lupins are beautiful, and there are masses of buds on the roses.

We now have flowers to use in bouquets at the shop, so our Stems signature bouquets and edible bouquets [...]

One of my mother’s sayings was ” you reap what you sow”. There was always a pregnant pause after the comment. She was a wonderful, self-taught philosopher/psychologist/maverick. I cannot say that she came across as a warm person – unless she particularly warmed to the other person, and she would then reveal the full extent [...]