Interview with Rebecca Stuart
We are delighted to speak with Rebecca Stuart, Cornwall based Florist specialising in weddings and events; with her own podcast and inspiring social media account - Rebecca speaks about where her passion began, inspiration and how to combine structures in your garden to create a delicate and elegant display.
Where does your passion for gardening originate and how was The Garden Gate Flower Company born?
I have a background in textiles and a passion for anything creative. Gardening isn’t far from a beautiful piece of fabric. Colour, texture, and repetition are all things to be considered when creating a garden just like a print for a curtain! Finding an outlet for my creativity was so wonderful and the element of growing flowers that I could bring into the home was so exciting to me. I started Garden Gate back in 2010 when a friend came to me with an idea to turn the pony paddock into a cutting garden. My mum was going through chemotherapy just after a breast cancer diagnosis and I thought how lovely to create a beautiful garden that she could see from her bedroom window. At the time I was running a curtain making business but very quickly the passion for gardening took hold and we were creating events all over Cornwall and internationally!
WHO HAS INFLUENCED YOU MOST IN YOUR CAREER?
Gosh what a good question – but perhaps not who but where? There are so many beautiful gardens that you can visit to get inspiration from but often I find it from the most unlikely places. Living in beautiful Cornwall and so close to the sea I love to take inspiration from the colours and textures off the coastline. Seeing wild carrot grow on the coast path and bringing elements like this into the garden seems to just work here in Cornwall. I love travel and seeing houses painted different pastel tones or pieces of pottery or painted tiles. I am just so influenced by colour and patten and it is often all around us – you just need to take a moment to look.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GARDENING & FLORAL DESIGN STYLE?
My creative passion has always been centred around interiors and colour. I look at the garden as another room in the house and love to ensure the blend is almost seamless. My style leans to the cottage garden as my house is an old Victorian railway cottage so I like to ensure the planting is in keeping with the place. The same goes for floral design work – the first important question is location of the event and ensuring the right floral design is applied to the space to enhance it.
WHICH OTHER GARDENS, FLORIST OR GARDENERS DO YOU ADMIRE?
The two great leaders of the British flower movement when I was starting out were Charlie Ryrie & Rachel Sigfried. Both were growing flowers for weddings and events, and I visited their gardens as I was starting my cutting garden in Fowey. They were both growing flowers in very different conditions and it was so inspiring to see how this could be achieved.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH A TOTALLY NEW PROJECT?
I go back to my original principles of taking inspiration from the landscape the garden or event sits in.
I go back to my original principles of taking inspiration from the landscape the garden or event sits in. For garden projects it is good to understand the key elements of soil, sun, and drainage. When we created our garden at the cottage the water table was high, but it is south facing so can be rather a challenge. Remember gardens are a journey and you need to consider what paths you want to create to allow you to wander through them. Once the outline is created scale is my next element. I love playing with scale. All too often people with small gardens will buy small furniture and small pots – go big. Mix up the scales and every garden or balcony can have a tree or large shrub even if you have to put them in pots. Finally, I think about colour and planting choices, I know it seems like the last thing but getting the bones of the garden right is really important as plants can be changed…hard landscaping needs to be spot on first time!
HOW DO YOU INCORPORATE STRUCTURES AND PLANTERS IN YOUR GARDEN?
Bringing large planters into your garden add instant drama and scale. Placing a large pot in the middle of a path so the path diverts around it brings drama. Using planters as dividers are perfect for compartmentalising areas in your garden. I love to create multiple seating spots around the gardens I create, rarely do I sit down but if I do I want it to the best seat in the garden no matter what time of day it is. Whilst ornamental structures in gardens are perfect for climbing roses or clematis, I love them in the winter when life has gone back to sleep and beautiful rusted ironwork becomes art in your garden.
WHAT THREE THINGS SHOULD YOU CONSIDER WHEN STARTING A CUTTING GARDEN AT HOME?
Extending the picking season for as long as possible is key. Having a good mix of annuals and perennials that are good for cutting are a good staple, but don’t miss out on the bi-annual sowing. It seems like a faff and in a way it is, but it helps with the early offerings and the hungry gap before summer flowers are in abundance. Also don’t be tempted to sow the entire packet! Stagger your sowing as slugs can be cruel in an early wet spring so having a backup of stock will be very helpful!
WHAT'S THE BEST THING ABOUT YOUR JOB AND WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU HAVE TO OVERCOME?
I absolutely love my job. I love the venues and other industry folk I get to work with and gardeners I meet are the kindest people I’ve come across in life. The challenge sadly are things now beyond our control as climate change is here and it is undoubtable getting harder to grow flowers with the extreme weather patterns we are seeing. Us gardeners are great at adapting and we look for new varieties that stand up better to the elements. Slugs however, gosh they really are a challenge!
WHICH PART OF YOUR OWN GARDEN DO YOU GET MOST PLEASURE FROM?
Well, this varies from season to season! In early spring it’s the pots by the front door as I pack them full of tulips and the show is incredible. Now, in summer it is the kitchen garden section as I love my ‘table of scent’! I have a table of scented pelargoniums, lemon verbena, camomile, and thyme. Next it will be the centre of the garden as the sweet peas are about to get into their stride - I love them all at varying times. However, this is a good thing to remember about a garden. Don’t get too bogged down by all aspects looking good all at the same time. Think of the garden as rooms and then make them super special and move from one area to another. It was Rachel from Green & Gorgeous that said if you want to grow flowers you have to embrace abandonment and she was right it can’t look perfect all of the time!
