“I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly outgoing person,” says garden designer Sean A Pritchard from his kitchen table in Somerset. “But when it comes to expressing myself through flowers, I suddenly become extroverted and really interested in loud, brash colours.” Around us, yellow daffodils splay out from mugs, jugs and vases; the antique dining chairs have been coated in bright-red gloss paint.
The horticulturist has become known for his playful flower arrangements, which proliferate on teetering stacks of books in his 18th-century cottage in the Mendip Hills. The tiny front garden supplies seasonal blooms for his arrangements, chronicled first on Instagram, then in Outside In, a month-by-month gardening guide published in 2024. His new title, Atmosfloric, explains how to build evocative displays.
Sean A Pritchard’s sitting room with yellow daffodils in antique lustreware jugs © Emli Bendixen
In the book, Pritchard features 12 other homes whose owners – gardeners, hairstylists, designers – use flowers to create their own particular mood. The volunteers at Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard, former home of art patrons Jim and Helen Ede, take a pared-back approach, embracing green lady’s mantle and pale Icelandic poppies in its whitewashed interiors. Actor Richard E Grant, meanwhile, is unabashedly maximalist, setting bold bouquets of Boscobel roses and cornflowers against striped and chintz upholstery. “From the moment we got [to Grant’s house] to the moment we left, I don’t think we stopped laughing,” says Pritchard. “Playing with flowers feels like the most luxurious, indulgent thing you could spend two hours doing.”
