I’m lucky to have something creative and beautiful to do during hard times – Andrea Jones
From spring until autumn, the half-acre field near Stewarton in Ayrshire where Andrea Jones grows cut flowers is alive with colour.
From here, Mayfield Flowers supplies beautiful, freshly-picked blooms to local florists and customers. Some of the flowers are delivered by post across the UK and many of them are destined to end up in the bouquets of the brides who have fallen in love with the sorts of cottage garden flowers, grasses and seed heads they can’t find anywhere else. When lockdown happened and weddings were cancelled, Andrea (pictured left) had to rethink her entire business.
“I began doing deliveries around a wider area and I concentrated on growing the sorts of flowers that would have a long vase life and so would be more suitable for bouquets, which I was making in greater numbers.”
Andrea recalls delivering flowers to someone who had just had a baby. “They were from her mum and I remember thinking how unfair it was that I could see this lady’s daughter and new grandchild on the doorstep while she couldn’t.”
During lockdown flowers have become a way to connect with family and loved ones, says Andrea.
“I feel fortunate I could work on something so creative and beautiful at such a difficult time, but my two sons who were spending lockdown with us were arguing over who would do deliveries because they just wanted some time off the farm.
“Weddings are still going ahead, even if on a smaller scale, but what
I am looking forward to most is to starting up my flower-arranging workshops again. The chance to meet other people while making a beautiful bouquet is just the tonic that some people need.”