THE FLOWER PORTRAITS: HELEN, GROW COOK INSPIRE

We first met Helen in 2022, when she invited us to have a conversation on her podcast, Grow Cook Inspire, about growing cut flowers, and we have been friends and gardening confidantes ever since. Helen Cross is an author, journalist, gardener, and school gardening advocate, passionate about growing food and flowers, and especially about the physical and mental health benefits of gardening. Much of her career has been spent championing and supporting horticultural workers, particularly women in the industry, through her journalism and writing. Helen came to visit us one quiet day in June, when we had lots of roses and the poppies had all turned to seed. I wanted to know what flowers meant to her. She cut some flowers, choosing roses, anemones, chamomile, and poppy seedpods, and arranged them in a vase while we chatted about finding order in chaos, which seems to be every gardener's challenge. I filmed little snippets of our morning, capturing the conversation, the flowers, and the rhythm of making an arrangement together.