Interview with Sofa & Stuff
British Flowers Week is an annual five day event celebrating the British cut flower industry, raising the profile of growers, wholesalers and the florists who work with UK-grown flowers. It is organised the Flowers from the Farm the industry body promoting small-scale growers of local, seasonal British cut flowers. Flowers from the Farm, with a membership of more than 1000 flower businesses across the UK, is uniquely placed to lead the industry-wide campaign to increase the
share of the UK market occupied by flowers grown in this country.
It was an honour to be interviews by Sofa & Stuff on the launch of their latest fabric collection. latest Here is a brief extract from our interview but you can find the full article by following the below link
As British Flowers Week approaches, we had the pleasure of settling down with Becky and Sarah Kemlo, the sister duo behind Kemlo & Kemlo. Their flower farm and floristry business, based outside Lymington, in the New Forest, is renowned for its garden-grown wedding flowers and commitment to sustainability. Our conversation dipped into their intriguing journey to flower growing and the unique qualities of British-grown blooms.
From neuroscience and super yachts to flower farming
Q: Both of you have experienced very different careers before embarking on this joint enterprise. Can you tell us a little bit about what motivated you to establish your flower farm and floral design business?
A: We both found ourselves in our late 20s/early 30s needing a change. I had spent my 20s in a lab doing neuroscience research, and Becky had been working abroad on luxury sailing yachts as crew and cook with her husband, looking for a move back to the UK. I’m not sure I really knew what I was looking for in a career move, but we both knew something had to change. Around that time, Becky was getting married and to save money, decided that we, her family, could arrange the flowers! We enjoyed it so much we joked that we should both pack in our jobs and become florists. Pretty soon, the idea took hold, and we found ourselves daydreaming of a future business together and spending our free time retraining.
Having worked as teenagers on an organic farm, we were already conscious of the impact of food miles and were vaguely aware of the fact that the vast majority of flowers sold in the UK are shipped in from Holland. It seemed nonsensical to us to work with imported flowers that had been sprayed with chemicals, shipped around, and wrapped in copious amounts of plastic, so the second idea, growing our own flowers, was born. The combination of flower farming and floristry just seemed to tick so many boxes. We knew we’d love growing and working outside, would relish doing something more creative, as well as enjoying the social aspect of working collaboratively with brides, grooms, and wedding planners on their weddings.
