Stem & Green

Hello… it’s time we re-introduced ourselves, we’re Stem & Green, a three acre flower farm in Winchester, Hampshire. 💐 🌱 We’re purpose driven growers on a mission to spread some joy through flowers. We grow beautifully natural and scented flowers that evoke a memory, and bring a smile. Flowers that are seasonal and grown when they naturally do. Nothing forced or drenched in chemicals. We believe there is alternative to the norm, where flowers are treasured and not just a commodity, where the seasons are celebrated and where the growing is kind to the environment. We deliver nationwide and locally where freshness is key. So we pick your flowers on the day to order, no storing on cold stores. We sell to florists too, to shops and restaurant, bars and offices. 🌷 We do weddings and events, frothy natural and utterly beautiful ones. We do workshops, flowery ones and arty ones. In the summer we do Pick Your Own, we have a little cafe too. We look for as many ways for people to interact and enjoy beautiful British blooms. We also have a shop where we stock the tools and things that we love and use daily, from our favourite flower frog to the aprons we wear daily. Do pop in and say hi 🌻

We had fun yesterday dressing the quaint Boldre church in the New Forest. Lashings of seasonal foliage and home grown colour brightened up what was a chilly day. Huge congratulations Eliza and Max ❤️ #weddingflowers #newforest #britishflowers #grownnotflown #weddinginspo

We’re really excited to have Lisa Gardner aka @irishill return to Stem & Green this year to run two wonderful workshops. Lisa is an incredible painter & poet who draws all her inspiration from the natural world, often using natural flower pigments in her work. 19th June - Watercolour & Wellbeing: Lisa will guide us through how to explore free-flowing painting techniques & breathing meditations to nurture your creativity and inspire calm. 18th September - Mindful Poetry: Join Lisa to create short flower poems and Haiku. Starting with a flower field meditation, we will enjoy poetry and explore journaling techniques to inspire your words to flow. Lisa will then lead you to writing their own poems. For more information head to our website

June is nearly here and it’s going to be a busy one, here is a rundown of all the floral antics coming up next month… 🌼 starting in June we have Pick Your Own and our cafe hatch open every Friday and Saturday 🐥 5th @louisebrownbasketmaker will join us for a willow birdfeeder workshop 💐 6th we have our first Floral Mechanics class: Meadow box arranging 🐝 13th @design.junction_ lead a ceramic bee-bath class 🇬🇧 15th - 21st its @british.flowers.week 🌼 19th - 5th July it’s @thewinchestergardenfestival 🌱 19th @irishill leads a watercolour wellbeing workshop 🌸 20th @fields_of_pressedflowers joins us to run a flower pressing workshop 🎨 26th @becki_clark_ returns with her hugely popular watercolour class 🍀 27th @louisebrownbasketmaker returns to run a willow plant support class It’s going to be a wonderful month of celebrating the best of June flowers, we hope you can join us 🌼

Feels like yesterday we were awash with spring bulbs, tulips, ranunculus, narcissi… but just like that the seasons have shifted, early summer is here. 💐

I’m just over a month we have our first Floral Mechanics Workshop. We’ll be looking at how to create a foam free meadow box using a narrow trough & chicken wire. We’ll start with tea and coffee, then after a demonstration, we pick and arrange. We finish with home made cake and tea. A lovely way to spend a June morning. #hampshirelife #winchester #thingstodoinhampshire

We’ve had lots of people asking when Pick Your Own will start… We’re aiming for the week of 25th May, which is also half term. We’ve been busy getting lots of lovely plants in the ground, so should have lots of gorgeous blooms to pick. This year we’re also extending our PYO days. Pick Your Own will be open Wednesday & Thursday 10 - 3, and Fridays and Saturdays 10-4 with our coffee hatch. We look forward to seeing you all back on site very soon. #pickyourown #hampshirelife #winchesterlife #thingstodoinhampshire #britishflowers

Hello florists…. We’re looking for a passionate florist to join us on Fridays and if possible some Saturdays throughout the summer. Fridays are a fun day with PYO customers, weddings, workshops and lots of lovely orders to make. If you’d like to spend a summer with us, then DM us to find out more. 💐

A YEAR IN FLOWERS: This year I’m capturing the life and changes @stemandgreen flower farm, I was back this week for chapter 4 April: Spring is in full swing, the buzz of bees, blossom, thickening hedges, knee high grass & flowers. For the farm, April marks the high point of spring, marked by an abundance of tulips, narcissi and ranunculus, the real stars of the month. April also sees a big push to get summer planted, thousands of seedlings braving it outside ready for midsummer colour. The field is filling, greening up, showing the great promise of what’s to come next…

This is @stemandgreen signing off after a week of hosting the @flowersfromthefarm account. I hope you’ve enjoyed the insight into our little corner of Hampshire. It’s an utter privilege to be able to grow such beautiful blooms, work with so many talented and clever florists and continue to fly the flag for British Flowers. I may be slightly biased, but I can’t think of anything nicer than locally grown, seasonal blooms; picked freshly from a farm that cares for the earth and the beautiful environment that surrounds it. And what’s better is they don’t cost the earth 🌎 Thanks for all your lovely comments, do give us a follow if you would like to keep up to date with life @stemandgreen #britishflowers #grownnotflown #seasonalblooms

It’s Day 3 of @stemandgreen takeover of @flowersfromthefarm And today is Earth Day 🌎 Earth Day has been running since 1970, and is a day to highlight the global impact that climate change, pollution and deforestation is having on our shared planet. 🌱 This is a subject very close to the heart of all @flowersfromthefarm members, we’re all striving to grow flowers in a way that creates as little damage as possible to the earth, and ideally go someway to actually heal the earth. Here @stemandgreen we are passionate about ensuring our flowers are as sustainably grown as possible, here are some of the things we do: 1. Growing seasonally. This means only using flowers that naturally grow at that time of month, so nothing forced with light or heat even if they are grown in the UK. 💐 2. Caring for the soil. Our soil is rich with microorganisms, fungi and bacteria that actively feed our plants. If we care for them it means happy plants and happy flowers, so we feed the soil, we mulch, we add goodness, we keep it covered and we don’t disturb it - so no ploughing. 🍀 3. Kind to Wildlife. The bugs, bees and birds can be our best friends, they eat the pests, the slugs and black-fly, they maintain a healthy ecosystem so we don’t need to use pesticides, in return we don’t spray anything unkind to nature like weed killer or bug killers. 🦋 4. No single use plastic. We’re all about celebrating natures most beautiful creations - they don’t then need to be wrapped in plastic. All our flowers and products are wrapped and delivered in 100% compostable packaging, our postal bouquets even come with a biodegradable cotton nappy to keep them hydrated. 🐞 5. Buying well. We want to minimise waste and minimise the carbon footprint of the things we buy. That means buying things that last and buying local. Our plant support netting is actually made for football goals and will last donkeys years. If we buy plants we only buy UK grown plants ideally from local nurseries. 🌸 6. Off Grid. We’re proud to be 100% powered by renewable energy, every email sent, every strimmer battery charged is all from the power sun. 🌼 Continues in comments….

Hello, it’s day 2 of @stemandgreen ‘s takeover. Like all @flowersfromthefarm growers, we’re on a mission to celebrate the seasons and celebrate what grows naturally in the UK without being forced or helped with heat and lights - so this means no roses in February, and no Dahlias till the summer. But it also means we get to enjoy flowers in their happiest time. Some stay for a while, so are fleeting. We’ve already said goodbye to the narcissi, who have been and gone. Here is a little guide to what is looking its best here in Hampshire during the second to last week of April, this may differ from farms in the balmy south or the north. Why don’t we heat our tunnels or force things to grow out of season? Well firstly the plants don’t like it, so they’ll be more susceptible to pests and diseases - which means using lots of nasty chemicals. And secondly it’s not great for the environment, gas powered heaters and lights use up so much energy, which is why out of season flowers create the largest carbon footprint per pound spent in your shopping basket. So seasonal, locally grown blooms means happy plants, a happy planet and hopefully a happy vase on your kitchen table. 💐