Sustainable Floristry Career Course | Student Spotlight | Holly Grows

For us, one of the most rewarding parts of our Sustainable Floristry Career Course is the people that it brings to our special little corner of the world, the time spent getting to know new people from all over the country, and the world, and to share in what flowers mean to them. It is a seedbed of exchange, experience, passion, and discovery; and flowers facilitating and bolstering that ritual of coming together. Before Days of Dahlia, I spent a considerable amount of time in educational settings throughout my art career; whether it was introducing children to contemporary art, supporting young people to create portfolios and submit applications to art school, or teaching teenagers how to cast objects. Working with children is fun but there is something about adult learning that I find even more rewarding. Something about that leveraging of lived experiences, all of that knowledge and life coming to the fore, someone who knows where they want to go, but in need of someone to show them the way.

In late March early April 2025, right at the beginning of our flower season, 10 enthusiastic and driven individuals arrived at Days of Dahlia. After 5 intensive days of learning, creating, flower arranging, brainstorming, and discussion, they left as sustainable florists and business women with a clear plan and newly gained confidence. It was magical!

We are excited to launch our first student spotlight feature by introducing you to one of those fully fledged sustainable florists: Holly Grows.

Holly in our garden with a Spring favourite; Ribes Sanguineum AKA flowering currant.

Holly used to own a house plant shop, from where she had started selling flowers, becoming hooked on working with flowers day to day; as we all do! With experience in the wedding industry, retail, wreath workshops, subscription flowers, and markets, Holly had a lot of knowledge already and recently obtained a portion of land for growing flowers, and so begins her journey into growing cut flowers for sale. Holly joined the course for a number of different reasons; to up-skill her floristry, hone design elements such as incorporating more negative space into bouquets, kickstart her adventure into growing the flowers, and to get over that feeling of "imposter syndrome". We couldn't disagree more with the idea of Holly as an imposter, Holly is a talented florist and an authentic, hardworking individual who is going to do great things!

Read on for words from Holly herself, as she reflects on "A very well spent week... "

Last week I was lucky enough to spend 5 days on an intensive sustainable floristry course with the wonderful Days of Dahlia. This was an in depth and comprehensive course that aimed to teach us everything we need to know to pursue a career in sustainable floristry. I wanted to do this course to set me up and give me confidence (read: cure my imposter syndrome) to begin offering wedding and event floristry. And boy did they deliver!

What an incredible experience - Lauren and Louisina were so generous with their knowledge, anyone who knows me knows I hate gatekeeping so it was really lovely and refreshing to spend this time with people who genuinely love to share all that they have learnt and guide others to succeed in the same industry as them.

Holly's beautiful bridal bouquet of narcissi, hellebores, and muscari grown on our farm, with British-grown stocks and sweet william, made on day one during our bouquets and accessories module.

We learnt how to create all types of wedding flowers, from hand tied bouquets and wristlets to large scale installations - all without a single ounce of oasis or cable ties or plastic! This is the future of floral design and I’m so excited to be a part of it. On top of the practical side of things we also went into lots of juicy detail about the business side of things which was so helpful as well.

What I learnt…

I have always known that the imported flower industry is problematic, and the goal for me has always been to move towards locally grown flowers and of course grow my own. However, after spending the week at Days of Dahlia, this now feels much more urgent to me. Studies suggest that a small bouquet of imported flowers has a carbon footprint close to that of a flight from London to Paris!! I won’t go into too much detail on the negative impacts of imported flowers but you can read a summary in this article.

Because of these learnings, I have decided I will not be taking on anymore subscription customers. I still have a handful of subscriptions which I will of course honour, and I will keep my Friday Flower orders open during this time. And thankfully, my flowers are now beginning to grow so my bouquets from now until the end of the growing season will be incorporating my own locally grown blooms, reducing the carbon footprint of the bouquets massively which is great. Gotta practice what I preach! (And I preach about the environment a lot!!)

The most precious wristlet of violas, hellebores, rhodanthemum, muscari, and narcissi all grown on our farm. And of course, no wires, plastic, or glue, beautifully made by Holly.

So, what’s next?

As I said, my flower growing season is now beginning so I will keep offering my Friday Flowers and gift bouquets, incorporating as many home grown flowers as I can. And I am super excited to say I have now opened my books for wedding and event enquiries and would love to hear from anyone who is looking for garden style, sustainable flowers for their wedding or event in 2025/2026. The goal is for all my designs to be season led and created with primarily home or locally grown flowers and sustainable techniques.

Holly's bowl of plenty, made during the table styling module on day 3, brimming over with bright Spring flowers catching the soft afternoon sunlight.

I’m super excited for what is to come and I am so grateful to anyone who has supported me so far, whether you are an instagram follower, paying customer or a newsletter reader, you are all so special to me and I hope you stick around for this next chapter. If you would like to see more behind the scenes of whats happening in my flower field, make sure you’re following along on instagram!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/37df87_93d8957326434c10bd397760bec1b563/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Holly made this beautiful moodboard complete with slogan, font, brand colours, illustrations, and a clear design aesthetic after our branding module which illustrates her brand messaging perfectly.

Thank you Holly for all your hard work on the Career Course and for allowing us to share your story and experience! Now friends, go follow Holly's flower growing journey, beautiful floristry work and photography at https://www.hollygrows.co.uk/ and on Instagram at

https://www.instagram.com/hollygrows

If you would like to be one of our next round of Sustainable Floristry students, you can find out more about the course at https://www.daysofdahlia.com/product-page/floristry-career-course.

To find out more about our flower school, visit us at https://www.daysofdahlia.com/flower-school-glasgow

Thank you for reading friends!

Lauren x

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