In the Flower Field

As I make my way down the narrow track to her cream farmhouse overlooking the Vale of Pickering, Jill is already out in the field picking. I am on my way to a photo shoot at Binnington Blooms where Yorkshire flower grower Jill Smith cultivates country garden flowers for cutting on the family farm, near Staxton.

As promised, Jill is looking out for me and calls out a cheery ‘good morning’ from the flower field, which is just a stone’s throw from the house and barns of the farm.

At 7am it’s a fairly early start. The timing works well for both of us. Jill is always up and out early on picking days and for me as a photographer, this golden hour is the best time of day to be out with my camera. The sun is still low in the sky and the light is warmer.

Jill pops back inside to make us both a cup of tea, while I venture into the flower field to plan the shoot. I am here to take photographs of the flowers and of Jill picking them.

We’ve both been on tenter hooks as Storm Ellen has just wreaked havoc over parts of the country and Jill was concerned that her beautiful blooms would be battered in the storm. With some help from her husband Steve, she has been busy staking them to make sure they withstand what the weather throws at them.

A garden of delights

Fortunately, the flowers survived and more importantly are looking beautiful in the morning light, bejewelled with tiny beads of rain on their petals.

As I take a sip from my steaming mug of tea, I cast my eyes over the rows of dahlias, rudbeckias, cosmos, dill, grasses, roses and the delightful bed of wildflower annuals in front of me. Jill’s site amounts to an acre in total and every inch of it is packed with seasonal flowers with narrow paths dividing the beds.

Jill, who also works on the family farm, has been growing flowers here for the past eight years. The flower field was born out of a passion for gardening and her love of flowers. She was brought up in the Channel Islands and moved to Yorkshire on marrying Steve, a dairy farmer. Flowers and gardening are in her blood as her father grew commercial glasshouse chrysanthemums when she was a girl.

For me, the dahlias here are the showstoppers with their mesmerising petal formations and dazzling late summer colour. As I begin to photograph them, I find myself falling in love with them even more. Particularly, because Jill has chosen some exquisite colours. Gone are the gaudy yellows and oranges. Instead the palette is more subtle - apricot, burgundy, deep pinks, mauves, creams (including the huge dinner plate dahlia, café au lait, with its huge creamy-coloured flowers and peachy centres).

Late summer colour

But this time of year isn’t just about dahlias. Jill has plenty of other flowers that come into their own as the summer days drift into autumn. The beautiful soft colour mix of the Rudbeckia Sahara with its tints of amber, copper and burnt rose look fabulous as Jill scoops them up into bunches and places them in buckets.

There’s also the cosmos, some interesting feathery grasses and dill that will make great cut flower foliage fillers for the bouquets and bunches. As Jill picks and strips back the lower leaves of each flower, she places them in the buckets of water that she barrows down to the shed where they will condition overnight.

I follow her to the shed to photograph some of the bunches of flowers she has picked. These flowers will be collected by florists or she will arrange them into bouquets to take to Wykeham Market the next day. She has an appointment with a bride later that morning who is coming to choose the flowers she would like at her wedding.

Jill also sells bunches of flowers via her website at Binnington Blooms where buyers can choose a bunch of simply wrapped flowers, a jug of flowers or a boxed bouquet. What a perfect gift to receive.

Flowers from the Farm

She is also part of a team of local flower sellers, Flowers by Season, who work together to sell wholesale, locally grown flowers and foliage direct to florists. Like many flower growers she is also a member of Flowers from the Farm, a co-operative of British cut flower growers which aims to encourage more people to grow cut flowers for market in Britain.

As more and more people source local and sustainably grown food for a number of benefits, the same ethos lies behind buying British-grown flowers. Not only does this help the local economy but British flowers offer seasonal varieties you won’t find in shops, they often have a stronger fragrance, travel fewer miles and are picked from a local field. But for me, the biggest pull is the timeless, rustic country garden style of Jill’s bouquets, freshly picked from the field. These beautiful bouquets are the epitome of modern country garden chic.