Creating a garden inspiration board

I got back to work this week and I couldn’t feel happier about it. Having a flourishing flower farm from April (I aiming for an Easter kick off this year) to December takes a lot of planning and prep which starts in these quiet winter months. Last year my moodboard showed lots of detail of which I really focused on. I wanted to start my new business with good practices – little things like making sure pots were kept clean, no piles of weeds were left lying about to regrow and focusing on one bed at a time got me off to a great start. This year I’m going to keep it up and continue to pay attention to the details which make a garden great, I’ll work on making sure all my plants have adequate supports and find a more successful way to manage slugs.

Outdoors, I have started to create new flowers beds which I hope will give me the range of flowers I need to sell bouquets and offer flowers for weddings and celebrations. Inside, I started to plan the ‘mood’ of the year. I’m finding the similarities between flower farming and my fashion past really comforting and there is a real sense of coming home. From my mood or inspiration board I can really see the colours I’d like to work with this year and have given myself the permission I need to let my creativity grow.

With the new beds in place I can now plan the planting. Whilst my flowers look wild I have the colours and quantities really organised. In the next few weeks, I’ll go through my existing seeds, seed catalogues and endless notes on cut flower varieties, ready to buy what I need for spring sowing. I can’t wait to get started!

Moodboarding is such a wonderful practice and doesn’t have to be garden specific – I’ve written about it before. To make it successful you’ll need to be intentional, give yourself space and time to pull images that speak to you. Don’t overthink it, follow your instincts and let what speaks to you be your guide. I like to use a really large board for all my images. I lay them out mixing text and images, sometimes switching one for another before sticking down. To make the experience even more beautiful, I like to light a candle (this was from my candle and wreath workshop) and make sure I have plenty of water close by. I love coming back to my board, each time I do I gives me something new to work with.