Flowers do a lot of the heavy lifting in summer, when you consider their aural and visual powers alongside their instant mood-boosting qualities and potential to elevate a space. There’s a reason the healthiest high streets have a florist at their heart, and so many city gardens have blossomed into full-blown businesses. Even food markets are upping their game and getting into sustainable, seasonable blooms. If you’re in London this steamy weekend, here’s where you should be buying yours.
Botanique Workshop
Inspired by the weekly Sunday flower market in the street outside, Alice Howard opened her second Botanique shop in Columbia Road last year — ‘because,’ she says, ‘flowers are not just for Sundays.’ Her bouquets are popular for home-spun weddings and her flower-pressing and wreath-making kits are beloved by locals even in summer months. The giftware deserves a shout: beeswax candles, hand-thrown stoneware and stationery hand-painted by small Hackney businesses.
Corner Shop
Corner Shop awakened this corner of Temple Place with its croissant aromas, natural wines, woven India Mahdavi chairs and distinctive paper-wrapped bouquets by Sorelle, a small grower based on a two-acre farm in east Devon. Pollinator-friendly varieties like peonies and tulips burst forth, seemingly bigger than your average bloom. They’re all hand-picked and shared with some of the finer restaurant tables in the capital, but the bouquets are exclusive to Corner Shop.
Bramble & Moss
A veritable Tim Burton backdrop of garlands, ivy and gnarly trees play up the gothic drama at this independent purveyor in Richmond. Vintage bowed windows usher in afternoon light, playing off antique mirrors and peacock feathers, while tendrils reach out anthropomorphically from unusual arrangements. Expect a tail feather or dried fruit alongside more whimsical native blooms.
The Real Flower Company
The Hampstead location is a proper working florist: muggy, messy and dripping with green. You’ll want to breath it all in before sifting through the bunches to select your own wildflower posy. Or ask for the ‘best of British’ bouquet, a seasonal cluster from the Hampshire farm, punctuated with English roses from a paddock in South Downs National Park. It’s more therapeutic than a walk through the Heath.
Calluna
Bess Levinson captures the indie spirit of Golborne Road with her otherworldly creations: classic blossoms speckled with ‘what’s that?’ varieties hand-chosen from the more remote corners of the flower market. Her clients are local denizens — veterans of the fashion and music industries who appreciate the weird and playful.
