Looking back to look forward

Of all the work I do through the year running the Common Farm Flowers Club has become the most important to me. Why? It’s the sense of community which has grown out of a collection of members who join in from all over the world.

Last Thursday evening, the last live club chat of the year, saw members from New Zealand, Australia, the USA and Canada, as well as all over Europe join in. We had people in Scotland planning a meet up, and people from New Zealand drinking their early morning tea and offering constructive advice to others in America, while we in the UK were drinking our late afternoon cuppas.

Last week’s session was a general Q&A with opportunities for members to ask a range of questions. You might think this would make the chat bitty and disjointed. On the contrary, I think it proved how wide the areas of interest the membership of our club enjoys. We started off talking about the value of shopping at small independent shops, not just to the local economy, but to the environment as well, moved on to recommending books to read over the Christmas break; we talked about where and how to plant willow for environmental as well as floristry reasons, and whether it’s worth investing in roses when the soil is ph9, and how to mitigate soil conditions with good quality mulch.

Some of the Club members have been involved since we began it on YouTube three years ago. Moving the Club to Substack was a risk, and it’s taken most of the year to build numbers back to where we were on the ‘Tube. But I hope you Clubbers will agree Substack is a much better place to host our friendly get togethers? It’s a more versatile space with room for writing, recording and filming. And I love that you can all post questions and suggest solutions to one another in the chat here - options we didn’t have over on the ‘Tube.

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Highlights this year? Well you all know how I love a learning curve. And learning to host guests on our lives was something I’ve long wanted to do. And guests are so the way forward! While I’m hardly Mel Robbins or Rangan Chattergee I know that there are so many interesting people out there to invite to chat to us about all kinds of things. We have four guests lined up for next term, and I’m already excited to think about who to invite to contribute to the summer sessions. And because the interests of the club members are so wide ranging we can have a really wide area of expertise with our invited guests. We love to talk about self-care AND gardening AND books AND running small businesses. All our guests so far have been amazingly generous with their time and expertise - our Q&A with Arthur Parkinson left me thinking Arthur Parkinson and I should send our session over to Goalhanger and propose a Rest is Horticulture podcast with us as hosts!

Another highlight this term was the live session we had talking about Christmas presents broadcast from the Niwaki shop in Chiltern St in London. Driven by an unexpectedly busy social life (a ball on the Thursday meant that I pushed the live to the Friday, and then I realised that the Garden Media Guild Awards lunch at the Savoy was on the Friday so what was I to do and where could I hold that week’s live? I didn’t want to let the Club down by cancelling - there had to be somewhere…) I found I needed a place to broadcast from in London town.

Niwaki are not only neighbours here in the south west of England (they are based only about 25 minutes away near Semley) but I already buy from them when I need snips for workshops as well as high end gardening kit for Fabrizio and I. Long experience has taught me that one may as well ask - if one doesn’t ask then a person can’t say yes. So I emailed Niwaki founder Jake Hobson and he said yes.

And so our first outside broadcast (not quite the BBC, but working on it with an iphone on a tripod and rode microphone to hand) happened, with helpful customers (the shop was open) popping into view and modelling hats and jackets as we talked. It was more fun than a picnic and we’ll definitely do more. I’m already talking to lovely Nikki of Rose and Lyons in Bruton about doing a spring edit at the end of next term, and who knows who I might butter up at Chelsea Flower Show this year for a corner of their shop or garden for a live broadcast at the end of the summer season too.

I hope you Clubbers will agree this has been a good year for the Club. I feel as though the Club is a bit like my business Common Farm Flowers: constantly evolving, encouraging all the members to learn and develop, to expand their interests and skills. The Club is a place I read for, I learn for, I keep myself on the look out for opportunities for.

I’ve had a good year with a gold at Chelsea, an early day motion recognising my work in parliament, becoming External Chair of Flowers from the Farm with all the challenges and interest that involves, being written about as a mover and shaker in the horticultural world by Anni Gatti in Gardens Illustrated, a standing ovation for my talk to the German slow flower movement and more.

But I think the Club is the work I’m most proud of.

So thank you Clubbers for your enthusiasm, engagement, your helpful suggestions, and your helping build this happy, interesting, learning community. 2025 was great. I’m hoping by the end of 2026 we’re really flying.

A note…..

If you’d like to join the club here’s how - simply sign up as a paid subscriber here on Substack and you are in. You can choose to pay monthly or annually.

If you’re interested in any of our previous paywalled posts, whether it’s our live chats or written content, these are all archived for new clubbers to see.

If you are considering joining, we will be changing the subscription price plan just after Christmas. (Existing monthly and annual subscribers will continue to pay the price they originally signed up for, as long as they don’t cancel and resubscribe.)

Do let us know if you’ve any questions about the club!