Grower Insight - Yeo Botanical
Yeo Botanicals, East Yorkshire.
Back in March we were invited by the lovely mother and daughter team of Yeo Botanicals to have a look around their cut flower plot at the beautiful Hodstock Priory. Now used as a wedding and event venue, the impressive gardens of Hodstock have been looked after by head gardener Diane for over 10 years. Diane and daughter Kerry have been given the opportunity to utilise the walled garden and stunning brick greenhouse to cultivate cut flowers for their joint venture, Yeo Botanicals.
Yeo Botanical began in 2021, during lockdown and grew from a love for flowers and gardening. In their first year they grew from Kerry's garden and sold bunches wholesale and directly to the consumer. The winter break gave them time to expand, adding bigger beds, a new greenhouse and a polytunnel at their space in East Yorkshire and also beginning work on the acre of land at Hodstock. The plot boasts a stream running through the lower part of it and is surrounded by cricket bat willow trees.
When we arrived at the Hodstock plot, we headed straight into the red brick walled garden where we were greeted by swathes of blue scilla, a lovely little sales shed and their long prepared beds, ready to spring into action. It’s an incredibly beautiful and inspiring space with a real sense of history to it. You notice all around you the nods to the past, the little date plaques in the walls, the most gorgeous old door and brick greenhouse, it’s hard to believe it was previously used as just a pony paddock! Kerry and Diane are currently using about a third of the space at Hodstock, alongside the other plot at Kerry's home, which means they can cover a large catchment. The lovely ladies gave us a little tour of the stunning Hodsock gardens, the two of them were so chatty and generous with their information and we loved this combination of head gardener knowledge meets youthful passion and excitement for everything this business is bringing to their lives - a real inspiration.
We asked Kerry what the main priorities are this year, now that they’re running two plots “We’re looking forward to seeing the walled garden evolve and have started with 3 large, 60 metre long beds. There's still lots of space to cultivate and grow. With this in mind, our main focus this year is wholesale. We want to grow competitively priced, quality flowers – sustainably, without pesticides or single use plastic. We’ll deliver locally in East & South Yorkshire as well as North Nottinghamshire by hand, nationwide by overnight courier and allow collections at site and pick your own by appointment too.”
We were of course curious to know what they were growing and, most importantly, what a few of their favourites were! “This year, we’re growing lots of varieties and colours - over 250 to be more precise – we want to be able to give a large range of what we feel are staples with some more unusual varieties thrown in. We start the season off with Spring bulbs and then some beautiful roses, ranunculus, peonies & sweet peas through to burnt orange and red sunflowers, rudbeckia, zingy coloured zinnias and delightful dahlias to see us through to early (hopefully mid- Autumn with the polytunnel). I’m most looking forward to Allium season and the architectural foliage such as artichokes and eryngiums and bells of Ireland, oh, and Cerinthe Honey Bee!”
The space they are working in is just so peaceful, beautiful and inspiring, it’s hard to imagine a bad day when you’re working in such a place. The two of them encourage each other and you can see such a passion for what they do in every exchange between them. Kerry says “We can both imagine the gorgeous scent and solise that we both find in our work, even during the madness of our Summer season - we simply can't wait! Last season when I was bouncing out of bed at 4.30am to pick flowers, and relishing every task - I just knew that we could create something special from the heart, a beautiful product for florists to work with.”
This year they have started working with florists directly, one even visited the plot whilst we were there, looking over what they had and discussing what they would be needing. We even talked about the possibility of them growing specific blooms to order for certain clients and Kerry was really enthusiastic about that possibility, adding this into the plan for the year ahead would be fantastic for them.
So finally, we wanted to know how it will all work and how you, our florists, can get your hands on these amazing blooms, grown with such love. Kerry tells us “It'll be as simple as possible to order, full availability for two weeks ahead will be emailed out to our mailing list, as well as being updated to our website weekly on a Monday. You’ll be able to order online, over the phone or by email. Buy by variety in bunches of 10 or buy by the bucket of fillers and focal’s or foliage. To enhance our product range we’ll be drying our flowers in the potting shed & these will also be available on a wholesale basis to create added interest. We’ll have our full range available from both sites to make it super easy for last minute orders too.”
We had the most wonderful day out with Diane and Kerry and we can’t wait to see where this exciting adventure takes them in the next few months and years. We hope we’ll be able to visit again when more flowers are out and we’ll definitely be buying some for ourselves as soon as possible! Thanks for having us lovely ladies of Yoe Botanicals.
Find out more and sign up to their mailing list at www.yeobotanical.co.uk or give them a follow on intsagram @kerrylyeo for some beautiful flower farm inspiration.
