BOUQUET FOR A BRIDE
A move to the High Weald of Sussex gave Zelie Billins the space for the cutting garden she’d longed for – and a whole new career as a bridal florist
Some people know what they want to do from a young age. Others discover a passion quite by chance, leading them to change course dramatically. So it was for Zelie Billins, a flower farmer and florist who, before she moved to a plot of land in the High Weald in Sussex in 2004, had an office job and had never so much as pruned a rose bush.
‘My partner Jonny and I were living in Brighton with our young daughter, Milly,’ she says. ‘We had a lovely house but the garden was tiny – not much more than a courtyard – and I really wanted somewhere where we could make a garden and be close to the countryside.’ She started looking online and found a dilapidated bungalow close to the village of Mayfield. In a parlous state of repair and with no heating, it didn’t look much but it had land and was within budget. ‘I remember it was just the loveliest midsummer’s day when we drove up there,’ says Zelie. ‘The garden was completely overgrown but as soon as we saw the view, that was it. We didn’t even look at the house, we just decided we’d build our own.’
The view in question looks out over a wide valley so steep one feels as if perched on a mountain top. Old oak trees dot the fields below while deer and foxes loll in their shade. In the foot of the valley is a small wood, hazy with bluebells in early spring and pungent with wild garlic later on. It is, as Zelie says, ‘heart-stopping’, and so it’s no surprise they positioned their new home to take full advantage.
While Jonny worked on the house – a beautiful, barn-like oak-framed building with double-height windows – the family made the best of it in the bungalow and all plans for the garden were put on hold. Zelie did however manage to carve out a small plot for growing vegetables: potatoes, beans and onions, with a >
❝WHAT WE LOVE MOST IS BEING SURROUNDED BY ALL THE TREES AND LOOKING OUT OVER THE VALLEY. WE FEEL AS IF WE’RE IN A WORLD OF OUR OWN❞
wigwam of sweet peas and a dahlias for colour. ‘It struck me just how different they were from the flowers you could get in florists’ at the time which, then as now, were mainly imported and which I found quite uninspiring,’ she says. ‘Roses tended to be scentless and uniform, while I much preferred a wilder, more natural look.’
Selling her surplus blooms at local farmers’ markets proved she wasn’t the only one to think this way and, as enquiries for wedding flowers started to come in, a new career began to form. ‘It was a very organic process,’ says Zelie. ‘Flowers from the Farm [an association of British flower growers] was just launching and there was an increasing awareness about the environmental impact of floristry. It was serendipitous that there was this evolving movement and people were wanting a more natural, seasonal approach.’
Ten years on, it’s clear she made the right decision. A purposemade cutting patch of just under an acre on one of the more accessible parts of the slope provides Zelie with enough material (largely perennials) to provide wedding flowers from April to early October. She relishes her contact with the brides, saying, ‘It’s a real privilege to be involved in this very special time of someone’s life.’ And she takes immense pleasure in the physical growing process, too. ‘Being outside, nurturing plants and seeing them grow – it’s life-enhancing,’ she says. ‘I never imagined that a field would take over my entire life, but now, whenever I see a new plant in a magazine or on a garden visit, I just have to grow it. It’s become an obsession.’
It’s this same passion for plants, coupled with an awareness of how little free time she has, that informs the two gardens Zelie created on the flatter land either side of the newly built house. One, >
❝What makes this garden so special is that it’s a sensory experience. When the roses and the lavender are out it’s not only visually lovely, the scent is just incredible❞
seen from the kitchen, is a topiary garden with low box hedges and an avenue of standard photinia underplanted with a froth of alchemilla mollis, astrantia and geraniums. The other is similarly formal, home to a chic Gabriel Ash greenhouse in which Zelie overwinters her scented salvias, and with paths radiating from a central potted olive. On either side, deep beds are massed with her favourite plants: peonies, delphiniums and, above all, roses. Zelie estimates she has around 200 in this garden alone, including varieties such as ‘Queen of Sweden’, with its shallow, double blooms, ‘Champagne Moment’, a beautiful buff colour, and ‘Margaret Merril’, which is exceptionally strongly scented. ‘There’s usually a moment in June when everything seems perfectly aligned, the light’s hitting at just the right level and the scent is wafting on the breeze and I just think “Wow”,’ says Zelie.
So what of the vegetables that sparked this obsession? Sadly, they are long gone. ‘I think that’s the thing about gardening. You have to be realistic about the time you have available, or it can become all consuming,’ says Zelie.
She admits to having been overwhelmed many times, such as when working with annuals early on, or having to cart barrow loads of compost down to the plot, or whenever, unable to resist a new plant, she extends her growing area. This is a major undertaking that involves many months of soil preparation and weed suppression. With this in mind, Zelie is taking her own advice and intends to limit herself to just one wedding a week. ‘Last year I only managed to cut a single jar of sweet peas for the house,’ she laughs. ‘I want to have time to experiment and to enjoy arranging flowers for myself.’