We've launched a pop up shop at the fabulous Anthropologie on the Kings Road in London.
We hope you'll pop in to see us - we'll be there until mid June!

I was at Cowdray Walled Garden yesterday doing a mini shoot with the photographer Lisa Devlin whose work I love. She has photographed our flowers before at a gorgeous wedding at Cowdray Walled Garden.

This little shoot was to capture a lovely backdrop for us to use on our RHS Chelsea Flower Show stand. We're featuring a little wedding table and we wanted it set against a gorgeous garden.

Well here it is, it's finally come home to the office!
We really were delighted to have won this RHS Certificate of Commendation this year for stand presentation from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, it really means a lot to all of us at The Real Flower Company.

It was the highlight of the horticultural year, the start of the summer season, the flagship day for flowers. This year's hot ticket; the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, proved that the simple pleasures derived from gardens, flowers and plants are as important as ever, if not more, in our current economic climate.

Here are a few more photos that I took around the show ground last week.

James May's Wonderful Plasticine Garden - Won RHS 'Plasticine Gold medal'

Okay, so there were no real flowers, no scent and the insects were confused, but there was still plenty of evidence of back-breaking work and creative planting (not to mention the wiring and sculpting!) and most of all it was fun.

Head-Turning Hats

I loved the real flower hats made by the talented finalists in the RHS Florist of the Year Competition. If anyone know's who made this one please post as I'm afraid I didn't write it down.

Downderry Nursery Lavender Display

Alium Divine Nurseries display

The Witan Wisdom Garden

Loved this little garden...

The Hesco Garden

The Cancer Research UK Garden

The Foreign and Colonial Investments Garden

We were situated next door to this garden...

Echos of Japan in an English Garden

In association with The Real Flower Company and in honour of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, our friends over at Boxwish have written a lovely article featuring the top 5 fantastic floral films featuring roses.

Here are the chosen films. If you click on the links you can see the full review of the film on the Boxwish website:-
The Da Vinci Code
A rose is left behind everytime the sought after grail is moved!
Bed of Roses
A widowed man takes a shine to strong business woman, sending her roses to lift her spirits!
Youth Without Youth
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the rose is used to great effect as a metaphor for time and the cycle of life.
Beauty and the Beast
The rose is featured heavily throughout the film and the falling petals provide a clever visual reminder of the Beast's looming fate.
American Beauty
In this 1999 Oscar winning film the rose represents the forays into the sexual fantasies of frusrated office drone Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)

I happened upon the award winning chef Tom Aikens on Twitter this week twittering as @tomaikens.

His tweet "Just finished service 90% flower menu, did someone say it was Chelsea flower show week???" caught my eye as I'm really interested in the edible flowers trend; I love both flowers and food.

Here is Tom's website where you'll find the phone number and you can even book online! It's £45 for lunch menu, coffee on top (with lot's of petit fours!)

Whether you're going to the Chelsea Flower Show or not this is the perfect May lunch menu.

Roast scallop with Nasturtium, carrot dressing and puree
Goats cheese mousse with broad beans, flowers and leaves
Confit of salmon with Viola and pickled radish
Chicken with lemon risotto and Marigolds
Poached rhubarb with Rose petals

Isn't this gorgeous? Inspired?

Images courtesy of Tom Aikens

Great news this morning from our team at The Chelsea Flower Show, it's been a record beaking 3 days for us so far and that looks set to continue today.

Although it's been very windy there the weather has been holding up and so far Chelsea has been teaming with people not rain.

Chelsea week marks an important date in our calender because it's the week when we officially start picking our English garden roses from our Hampshire farm.

To celebrate this momentous occasion we are offering a special 'Chelsea' subscription of 'English Roses for 6 months' (we usually offer only annual subscriptions). The 6 months subscription consists of a hand tied bouquet of Scented, English grown garden roses and herbs delivered each month for the 6 months of the English growing season. Delivery is free on 5 of the 6 bouquets, Tuesday to Friday.

The subscriptions can be booked at Chelsea, on our website, by telephone 01730 818300 or at our shop in Selfridges Food Hall, London.

The team here at The Real Flower Company are celebrating after receiving the coveted RHS certificate for our stand design at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Our 'Certificate of Commendation' was a glorious suprise and, after the weeks and many weekends of hard work that go into ensuring that we look our best at Chelsea, a little 'pat on the back' for all the RFC team who were involved. Well done everyone!

Three fabulous gardens won Gold this year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and I applaud the judges for their exquisite taste.

My personal favourite was the perfume garden but that maybe because the planting included all of the cut flowers and herbs that we grow ourselves and therefore I felt completely at home in it!

Gold and Best in Show: The Daily Telegraph Garden by Ulf Nordjfell

Gold and Most Creative Award: Perfume Garden by Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins

Gold: Champagne Laurent Perrier Garden by Luciano Guibbilei

Today was Press and VIP day at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show and after a long day yesterday setting everything up our stand was ready to present.

We are in a great position at Chelsea, on Main Avenue, stand CW1. Many of the best show gardens surround us and it's a brilliant people watching spot.

We attracted a lot of interest from the start this morning as people are drawn to the scent coming from our stand.

It was incredibly windy and wet first thing but then the sun came out (although the wind was still blowing!) and it was a splendid afternoon.

I spoke to the weather girl who had completed her early shift on the BBC this morning and, sadly, it looks as though there is more unsettled weather to come this week!

First of all let me apologise in advance for the quality of the images below. They were taken on a mobile phone and I will replace them with sharper images as soon as I have some!

Today, we have just installed four large counter top displays of scented garden roses, painted bird boxes and aromatic herbs in the main entrance Perfumery Hall in Selfridges, London store where our shop is located.

Selfridges asked us to design a Real Flower Company 'living' scheme for Chelsea Flower Show week and this is what we came up with. It had to include yellow roses to tie in with Selfridges centenary. It's amazing that the store is celebrating it's 100th birthday isn't it?

The displays are inspired by our own farms where we grow our scented garden roses and herbs. We really do use bird boxes between the rows of foliage on our farms to attract insect loving birds!

The displays include a total of 32 rose bushes, 8 pots of lavender, 16 pots of rosemary, 20 pots of thyme, 16 hand made and painted bird boxes and around 400 of our yellow and ivory scented garden roses which are attached by little water filled glass test tubes.

As they're 'living' displays we will be keepng them in top condition for the week by checking them daily and changing the roses as they fade.

Pop along to Selfridges to see it in all it's glory, it's there for 1 week only so do take a look before we remove it on sunday 24th May!