Plants and flowers have been my thing since I was a little kid. I studied plant biology at university in Manchester and, while I was there, took a part-time job at a local flower shop. It wasn’t easy getting hired; no one believed my résumé-of-lies other than a lovely lady named Sam, who was pregnant at the time and needed someone to do the brute work: sweeping floors and scrubbing buckets. Eight years and a move to London later, I’ve now got my own floristry business and studio. It was an accidental destiny, I think.
Chiswick House and Gardens, which has “one of the oldest collections of camellias under glass in Europe” © Joshua Tarn
In the observatory at Chiswick House and Gardens © Joshua Tarn
The 18th-century Orangery at Kew Gardens © Joshua Tarn
Spring and autumn are my favourite seasons in London. They’re the transitional periods where you get a convergence of things coming and going, or things that are only around for a few days, such as ginkgo trees. Since moving here I’ve plotted a map of every yellow mimosa tree in the city for when they flower between late January and April. I gatekeep it because I worked hard to find them all, but the biggest one I’ve discovered is a giant, fluffy thing in Regent’s Park. When you get to Queen Mary’s Gardens, you’ll be able to smell it. Another very beautiful one is on the corner of Lupus Street and Moreton Terrace in Pimlico. It’s perfectly round and sweet.
