Sprout - Turning Dreams into a Blooming Flower Business

80% of Britain is still farmland and yet less than 2% of the population has anything to do with agriculture at all. I've been involved with farming for nearly 40 years. And I've noticed that there is a new feeling about it. People want to get back to the land. They want to grow food. They want to look after animals. And in this series, I'm going to help six very different people try and make their dream of returning to the land a living reality. Although Kent is perhaps most famous for its orchards, it is home to almost every kind of agriculture. But even here, growing English seasonal flowers can be a risky business. Tonight's story is about two cousins. They're both women and they both grew up in Kent on family farms. And they've decided to go into business together, growing flowers that they want to sell these as bouquets and cut flowers for weddings. Can it possibly make a sustainable business? Jen Stewart-Smith and her cousin Beck Bibby have given up full-time work to become flower farmers. Jen said, I really want to do this. I want to find some land and I want to start growing these flowers. You know, do you want to come in on it? And I said, oh, you know, let's go for it. And after a bad start, they're hoping that this year will be better than last. They're renting a one acre plot near Maidstone, a dream of getting back to the land and supplying the public with homegrown seasonal cut flowers. The potential in the summer, this is going to be all flowers. Jen's a journalist and spends half the week working at the Times newspaper and the other half in Kent on the farm. Beck is pregnant and divides her time between the farm, caring for her daughter Erica and a part-time conservation job at the local council. And as farmers, they are chalk and cheese. I don't care about what things look like particularly, including myself. But Jen, Jen wants a little plaque up on the shed with the name on it. And I'm thinking, we need to get these plants in the ground. Sorry, was that harsh? No, it's fine. What the cousins do agree on is that they should focus on weddings. We're doing everything from preparing the ground, sowing the seeds, growing it, marketing it, doing the weddings, arranging the flowers. We do everything. It's a good idea, but it's a tough trade. Almost 90% of wedding flowers sold in Britain are imported from abroad, some travelling over 5,000 miles from Africa or Latin America. So compared to this, the cousins are decidedly small scale. At the outset, they invested £6,000 but ended up 12 months later with a £4,000 loss. This year, they have to make some money. For me, it feels a little bit make or break. We've both invested what is a pretty big sum of money personally. It really needs to stand on its own two feet. It's April, and with their business facing an uncertain future and the growing season beginning, the cousins have called on me for some advice. I'm just about to arrive at Jen and Bec's farm here in Kent. Behind these high hedges, there are fields of blossom on the apples, absolutely wonderful now in spring. I'll see what I think needs to be done to keep their dream alive. The first thing I see is that Jen has had an accident. Hello. Hi, hello. Oh, blimey. Now, if I shake your hand, will you fall over? No, I promise I won't. I'll support you. Hello, hi, lovely to meet you. You're Jen and you're Bec. I'm Rebecca, yeah, we're Bec, yeah. How did you do that? Skiing. About the most dangerous thing anybody can ever do. So, one farmer is pregnant and the other is hobbling about on crutches. They've got a lot on their plates. Jen and Bec's plot is a rented acre of land, which is about half the size of a football pitch. They arrange the flowers in an adjacent building. They've laid out raised beds and have put up a polytunnel for propagation. Soon, the site should be filled with seasonal English flowers that you seldom see in a florist or supermarket. What sort of plants are you focusing on? I don't think you can, you can't really sum them up. Focus isn't really a word. We like a sort of eclectic mix of plants. We like things that are a little bit quirky. I'm trying to work out what it is that you're selling that no one else is selling because in the end, it's either got to be unique, cheaper or better. No one that we know is growing and selling as an arrangement, as a bouquet or as a wedding or doing the whole thing. The cousins have a good concept, but they're not so good at selling it. They don't have a shop front or a website. What's more, their land is particularly tricky to work. So even if they do take orders, I foresee real problems in growing the flowers. My instinct is to put my hand down and feel the soil. Yeah, you can't get anywhere. The soil has been an orchard for decades. Where the tractors ran is totally compacted soil. It's like, you know, kind of banging a brick with your rake. That begs the question, why did you choose it? The location was ideal because it was right outside the shed. What you're saying is you don't know how to grow any flowers. The soil is rubbish. The site isn't ideal. Other than that, everything just looks rosy. It was perhaps naive to choose their land just because it's near a shed. And it's important that they improve the condition of their soil so that they can work it when they need to and raise a good supply of the flowers that their business needs to survive. Could you do, between you, four weddings a week? Every week? No, and we wouldn't want to. Right. Doing this has been very much a lifestyle choice. I mean, I moved back from London to do it. In a way, we don't want it to run away with us. And it seems they don't feel the need to bend over backwards to meet their customers' requirements either. We have had a couple of, you know, wedding consultations where we suddenly start feeling that we're being completely dictated to and we start, you know, you start sort of bending over backwards going, OK, and feeling quite stressed, thinking, I don't know if there is going to be any of those flowers in April or May or whatever. We're basically working on the sort of veg box scheme, which is, we did joke when we started this, yeah, we wanted to call our business Get What You're Given. But you cannot do that with people's weddings. No. You can't say, you know, you've chosen to have a November wedding. Tough, baby. Jen and Bec are amongst a small but growing number of smallholders who are keen to apply the principles of local seasonal food production to farming flowers. Of course, if you have a garden, you too can grow your own seasonal cut flowers. Delphiniums are an old cottage garden favourite whose great wands of flower in early summer make a superb display, both in a border and in an arrangement indoors. Cosmos are annuals, so they grow from seed to flower in just one season. They start to flower in midsummer and will continue right through to the first frost. And the more you pick for your house, the more flowers they'll produce. Dahlias are one of my own favourites, and no other plant fills late summer and autumn with such a rich range of colours. But the quality of the flowers counts for nothing if the cousins can't get to grips with the business side of things. I think the real problem here is a lack of focus. What they've done is very impressive and I like it. I like the feel of the business that they're setting up. But although they feel very clear about what they're doing, that's not reaching out to any kind of market. Jen and Beck need to get serious. I'm trying to help Jen Stewart-Smith and her cousin Beck Bibby, who with just an acre of land where they're growing seasonal cut flowers, want to establish a smallholding that can compete with the might of the UK's wedding flower business. Their business is suffering because their hearts are running their heads. So to see how I can help, I want to take each one of them aside to see how they view their own individual roles. Which aspect of this motivates you most? I think it's the actual growing, you know, the growing of the plants and the flowers. Jen, I would say, is more of an artist because Jen is so good at saying, right, this is what we're going to use. These are the things that go together well. Do you think Jen could do the growing on her own? No. I mean, she'd have a go. Yeah. I wonder if Jen is as clear about the roles within this partnership. Which of you would say had the better business head? I would say we were pretty evenly matched. Beck tends to keep my feet on the ground. I've always been, I suppose, the creative side of the partnership. So could you do it without Beck? No, absolutely not. I think I could be a florist without Beck. Offering the public seasonal flowers, the same way traditional farmers offer seasonal vegetable boxes, does have real potential. But neither of them is approaching this as a business. If they can take the whole sense of place, the sense of all the ecological and environmental awareness, local produce, indigenous flowers, fair trade, the organic produce, package it all up into a bunch of flowers and then convince me, the buyer, that it's worth paying for, then they're onto a win. After talking to Jen and Beck, looking at the figures and inspecting the farm, I've come up with a plan that I think will help. A lot of what you're doing here is driven by your own internal motives. And you're not paying enough attention to the people you've got to sell to. And you really have to. Because you will not be here in two years' time if you don't. My second point is that it is vital that Jen and Beck start communicating more clearly with their customers. When you describe what you're doing to me, you're very wishy-washy about it. For instance, if I want to buy your flowers, what's it called? Loddington Farm Flowers. Right, you're not saying, here we are, this is what we're doing, this is how we do it, these are the plants that reflect us, this is everything, everything about us. And you should just be confident and go for it. You're a bit too funny enough for two strong people. You're quite shy. I think you have hit the nail on the head. The cousins have no internet site, so they've no way of projecting their message about seasonal flowers grown in English soil out into the world. And more importantly, no means of selling them. I think you need to get your website and the look of the packaging together. So when someone has a bouquet of your flowers, it's from the soil. And last but not least, they do need to improve that soil so its structure is better and it's easier to work. And the best way would be to make raised beds with lots of organic matter. So I'll come back and see you in a month or so, and I think you need to show me these things. Jen and Beck clearly have a good idea, but will struggle to make it a viable reality unless they work out what their brand is and find a way to communicate it clearly via a website and their packaging. And they must work on that soil. He immediately saw through the fact that we're very much led by our heart in what we're doing. We need to be a little bit more business-minded, try and be a bit less sort of sentimental. Regardless of its size or output, it takes more than just a bright idea to make a farm profitable and sustainable. I think what the cousins now need is inspiration from someone that has set up and is successfully running a similar kind of enterprise. So I've sent them 200 miles west to Herefordshire on the Welsh border to a company called Wiggly Wigglers. Hello. Nice to meet you, I'm Heather. Hi, I'm Beck. Nice to meet you, Beck. Heather Gorringe founded the brand in 2001, and they now turn over more than £2 million a year. Seasonal English flowers and the values they represent are her core business. Our whole idea was we wanted people in their gardens and in their homes to have some sort of empathy with British farming. Jen and Beck are struggling to get across their identity, the key to Wiggly Wigglers' success. To make their bouquets distinct from mainstream floristry, they grow English foliage that you would never find in a high street arrangement. I think it backs up what we feel, which is that there's a lot of other foliage that can be used. Next, the cousins visit the bouquet workshop. Do you want to start stripping some stems? OK. Every bunch of flowers here has to follow one basic rule that will immediately make them stand out. And what are the requirements for one of your large bouquets? It's got to be wiggly, really. A wiggly bouquet uses lots of foliage and a wide range of colour and textures so that every arrangement has a personality that's instantly recognisable. Was that a good wiggly posy? It was definitely a wiggly posy. Well done. With no website, Jen and Beck currently have no way of reaching their potential customers, whereas Heather uses podcasting or broadcasting on her website. For me, it's not about the technology. It's about, can you get your ideas across and get a community when you live in the middle of nowhere and you have no direct access to many customers? Recorded and downloaded onto the company's web page to thousands of potential customers, it spreads the message about seasonal flowers. Sending the cousins to visit Wiggly Wigglers really does seem to have been a help. I feel quite inspired. There is a wiggly style and Heather's been totally specific to say, you know, we only source English flowers and we're doing this because to support English farming. Yeah, so the message is clear. Yeah. Back on their own farm, Jen and Beck are working on the soil, building its fertility and improving its structure. Good soil is always the starting point for good plants, but if yours is poor, there are some basic steps you can take to improve matters. To break up compacted heavy ground like Jen and Beck's, dig it well and add plenty of organic material. Well-rotted animal manure, mushroom or garden compost are all ideal, but never use peat as its production is responsible for the destruction of peat bogs. If your soil is not compacted, it is just as effective to spread compost as a mulch on the surface of the ground. Let worms and weather work it into the topsoil. However, some plants, especially many wildflowers, actually flower better in poor soil and won't thrive in enriched ground. The plot is starting to fill with flowers and Jen and Beck decide to get their message out to the world with an open day, complete with a string quartet, homemade cakes and a display of their flowers. Over a hundred local people have turned up and it seems that the guests are impressed. I've said to the girls I'd like to have like a bouquet every week. But blokes don't know a lot about flowers, do they? They look kind of nice, all right. Can't be afraid of your feminine side though. Many of those who've come here today are friends, family or existing customers and Beck's sister Cecilia thinks that whilst the cousins have made the right moves, they still think small when they need to think big. Flowers have been sold to friends and family and, you know, informally that way, but in order to really get it off the ground and make a serious go of it, they need to do stuff like this. But it is a good attempt at communicating with potential buyers so it's a step in the right direction. It's so nice, you know, you spend most of the time up here just on your own or with one other person and, yeah, it's so nice having loads of people coming and wandering around the plot. It's now the end of May and I'm back in Kent to see if Jen and Beck have made any of the changes that I had suggested. On this visit, I do hope Jen and Beck have thought about what I said to them last time and really worked out a way of selling themselves for what they are through the website, through maybe some printed material, stressing their Englishness, their seasonality and it will be really good to see if they've taken that on board and I think it will give the whole place a kind of energy that it needs. Hello. In the three short weeks since my last visit, they've begun to address their soil problems and their field is starting to fill with flowers. So tell me what you've been up to in the last few weeks. We've decided to sort of rebrand ourselves. Right. We've come up with a different name. Oh, which is? We're now Blooming Green. Right, good. We wanted something that spelt out what it was that we did. Their new name is definitely an improvement but they still have no website and they need one urgently. It's frustrating. Here we are, surrounded by their lovely flowers but the cousins have no way of selling them to the general public and if they can't sell them fast, they get no money and the flowers become compost. Is there an image, a bouquet, something that you can show me that tells me about you? I want them to gather flowers for a bouquet so they can show me how what they're doing is different and unique. They've got to sell the place, the product themselves to a very sensitive audience who want beauty and colour and they're not seeing it objectively and I think this is the crunch moment. Making a stunning arrangement from your own flowers is easy if you follow some basic rules. First of all, pick your flowers in the cool of the morning or evening and give them a good long drink before you start arranging. Condition the flowers by stripping off all the lower leaves. This keeps the water clear in the vase and allows all the energy to go into the flower head. Arrange the flowers in a spiral which will lock the stems together and make them harder to snap. Finally, tie them with soft twine and cut them to the desired length. And that's it, your own homegrown homemade bouquet. Tell me why you've chosen those flowers and why that represents your work. Well, firstly I would say there are several flowers in there that are scented. We've got the mock orange and also the sweet williams, they smell lovely but they're a really traditional cottage garden plant. This is an end of May, beginning of June bouquet. It's the seasonality of the flowers as well. So it follows from that that if I asked you to do the same exercise next week, next month or any month, it would be different. Yes. I think a good idea would be to give them to someone. There must be a restaurant or a shop or somewhere like that where the type of customer you're likely to want goes in and out. Right. That means we've got to do it now. I'm taking Jen and Beck to the nearby town of Cranbrook to test their ability to communicate their brand. There is a hair and beauty seller really got to sell it this idea that this is special, it's different, push it. Okay, are we ready? Let's go. A hairdresser's is an ideal location for displaying flowers as it's full of potential local customers but I wonder how Jen and Beck's unusual arrangements will be received. Hello. How can I help you? We grow flowers on our farm just up the road. We wanted to offer you some bouquets. They look absolutely beautiful. What have you got here? We've got all kinds of things like sweet Williams and I haven't seen sweet Williams for as long as I can remember. We've got the fragrance as well. That's mock orange. I mean, we can tell you pretty much everything that's in here. We've grown them all ourselves. The other thing that's special about our bouquets is all of the packaging is compostable. Even what appears to be plastic, you can just throw that into a compost bin. Of course, that is brilliant. And we've got some postcards in an envelope. I don't know if you'd be happy to put those out. Absolutely, we strongly believe in supporting local businesses. Thank you very much. We'd love to see them displayed. Wrapped in biodegradable paper, this display instantly communicates everything about Jen and Beck and their flowers, right down to their new brand name. For Jen and Beck, it's another small step on a very long road. I'm trying to help the cousins, Jen Stewart-Smith and Beck Bibby with their struggling flower farm. They are attempting to take on the might of the international wedding flowers business with their locally grown seasonal cut flowers. But as I look around the plot, I can see that there are real problems with the way that they present themselves to customers. When you come here, you see these wonderful flowers, but you are distracted at best, if not put off by the weeds, the fact the grass isn't cut, the edges aren't done. But it isn't a garden. And so I don't care about it looking a bit weedy and a bit rough around the edges. But I thought you wanted people to come here to pick up bouquets, to come and see what you've got. So have you had anyone come here and say, yeah, I don't mind the weeds, they're fine? Well, we did have somebody come here, didn't we? We had somebody come here and they were disappointed by the flowers. We perhaps shouldn't have actually invited them up to the plot. The two have just lost a big wedding order after the bride's family came to the farm and didn't like the site and didn't like the flowers. I felt terrible, but I also felt totally shocked because I just hadn't seen it coming. I have been, it's difficult not to get a bit emotional, but I have worked so hard physically and I'm absolutely knackered to have somebody come here and then... I can see that if you put so much in and someone just dismisses it. Yeah, and that's what it feels like. It's like someone's just come and said, you know, what's this? How can you expect someone on their wedding, this big, big occasion to overlook shabbiness and roughness and the rest of it? If you're going to have people here, you've got to tidy the place up. You've got to. They've done you a favour. Yeah, absolutely. Because they've actually kicked you in the teeth, which is what, you didn't need kicking in the teeth, but you needed to kick up the backside. The problem is clear. These two are just being too idealistic. They must challenge themselves to sell what they have in the ruthless commercial world of the UK's wedding flowers market. I've made contacts and there is a wedding magazine that would be prepared to give you a big spread for the January issue, but it would have to be perfect. It's got to be everything that is you. It's your one shot. Personally, I think it would be brilliant because what it would do is show people in the right market who are looking for that sort of thing, what you can do. And quite frankly, if you can't do it, at least you know where you stand. So how does that sound? Sounds absolutely brilliant. Sounds amazing, yeah. Right. The truth is, I don't really trust their reaction. Because I'm coming to realise that a lack of real commitment is one of their biggest problems. And no farmer can ever afford such a half-hearted attitude. Now, I like Jen and Ben. I like what they're growing. I like what they're doing. I think they've got so much talent and yet at the moment, I feel like a throttle, a pair of them. You go to some trouble, you set up something that could be such a good opportunity, yet the reaction is sort of, OK, fine, yeah, that'll be OK. And it's frustrating. I'm beginning to get to the point when I say, come on, you two, put up or shut up. The London-based Wedding Flowers is the biggest selling magazine of its kind in the world. It is a huge test for Jen and Ben. If the flowers aren't good enough, the photos simply won't be used. Jen is now off her crutches and is visiting the magazine headquarters to get the brief. I'm worried that she might say that the flowers are not perfect. But, you know, nature isn't really about perfection. Jen is meeting two of the most important people in the British wedding flower business. Wedding Flowers magazine style editor, Vicky Sullivan, and assistant editor, Andrea Ventress. Should we sort of give you a bit of an overview about the magazine? Do you know much about Wedding Flowers? Um, a little bit. Having not been married, I've never actually bought it myself. Well, it's basically the Bible, according to all brides-to-be pulling their wedding flowers. Vicky's mood board simulates the demands of an exacting bride-to-be, just the kind of customer Jen and Bec will have to deal with, and pander to if need be, if their flower farm is to thrive. A few things here I would say we wouldn't want to use those flowers just because it would mean getting them from abroad. For example, peonies won't be in season. I think the idea here though is probably to find something similar because really I think the colour scheme is vital for this shoot. Yeah. And I think for you to be able to work with lots of different brides, you probably need to think of ways that you can source flowers that could fit in with their scheme, otherwise you might be losing. No, we do, but equally, we don't keep our integrity of doing English local flowers, then we are just another florist. You and I have to work together and really make this happen. This is the shoot. We can't reshoot. Yeah. It's not good enough. We can't use it. With the cousins determined to stick to seasonal, English-grown flowers, the magazine's very commercial brief hasn't gone down too well. Getting some of the quantities will be quite difficult and also Vicky had named some specific flowers and I didn't want to be really awkward and say those flowers are not English, you'll never get them at this time of year. Trying to find replacements for what she has put on her list will be a bit of a challenge. To fulfil the task, they might have to modify their own ideals and for the first time, put the needs of the client first. It is late July and on the plot, Beck, now heavily pregnant, but still in charge of all the growing, is cutting the flowers that Jen, who's in charge of the arranging, has selected for the crucial photo shoot. What sort of length, Jen? Just like a... I think that long. We need to have a good bucket of each colour. Beck's hard work has transformed the field but it's difficult to know what to cut since only a few of the flowers she's grown exactly match Wedding Flowers magazine's demands. I'm not sure whether this colour's going to fit the brief, but I think it's absolutely stunning. Oh, this is amazing! Jen, who is emerging as the partnership's salesperson, knows that she's got a tricky job ahead of her tomorrow. I think we're nearly there with the blue, Beck. Yeah, cool. It's stunning but I hope Vicky likes it. Tomorrow is critical. In fact, it could be the making or the breaking of Jen and Beck's farm. It's the day of the photo shoot. Wedding Flowers magazine's style editor, Vicky Sullivan, has carefully chosen one of the finest Georgian houses in London as the backdrop for the shoot and it's costing thousands of pounds. But concerned by Jen and Beck's casual approach, Vicky is worried that they won't be able to deliver what she wants. It has been quite difficult for me to pin them down on what particular flowers they're able to bring. So this has been a slight difficulty for me because I've got a very clear vision about what I want for the day. Then the cousins turn up with their flowers. I just don't know what to expect at all. So I'm just kind of, yeah, see how it goes. The worst thing is that they just say it's not worthy of a magazine article. Hello! How are you doing? You all right? Hello, I'm good. It's an anxious moment for everyone as Vicky inspects their flowers. Absolutely perfect. Spot on, this is great. I'm so pleased. So this is where we're going to be shooting. In here. I think if there's enough room for you, that you can be in there. That's plenty. With the arrival of the photographer, Vicky lays out her plan for the shoot. Right, so we're going to have Annie, who's eight. So we're just going to do a few different shots. Maybe, you know, some ballet pumps with flowers on, that kind of thing. Her holding some flowers, maybe on one of the chairs there. One bouquet for her, maybe something for her hair. I think something for the hair would be really nice. Obviously the cake will probably have flowers on. The tables are quite big, so they do need a lot of flowers on them. Yeah. I've got some smaller vases and then you can just fill those with a hydrangea or something like that. So really simple. Okay. Great. Is that all enough for you to get started with? Yeah, that's brilliant. This photo shoot is detailed, focused and extremely exacting. In fact, everything that Jen and Becca so far struggled with. I want the t-shirts. I'd rather be at the plot. Today is a huge opportunity for the cousins, but unless they discover their focus, they'll easily blow it. There are two ways that today can go because it is a big deal. I think even Jen and Becca have got that. It really is a good opportunity. And like all big opportunities, you can either embrace it and jump in and hope that you survive, or you can hold it at arm's length and say, well, no, it doesn't really matter. And if they do that, I think they're in trouble. Oh, wow. Check that out. So here we have one of the vases. It's flocked. Up until now, their flower farm business has really been based on Jen and Becca pleasing themselves. So taking orders from one of Britain's top style editors is something of a challenge for them. I'd start with a bouquet of this and this, and maybe if you want to include something else, just let me know. Jen and Becca have just got three hours to create a number of arrangements varied enough to spread across six pages of Wedding Flowers magazine. First, Becca has to make a hand-tied bouquet for the model bridesmaid, while Jen is having to produce the arrangement of her life to match the boldness of the magazine's props. That is cool. That's pretty funky, isn't it? I want to see how the cousins are coping with being such a long way outside their comfort zone. Hello. Hiding behind enormous vases. How are you? Now, tell me, how are you getting on with the magazine and the people on the shoot? I initially was very negative. Having got here, I take most of it back, to be honest. This really is a big chance to get to a wider public, the whole concept of English flowers and seasonal flowers. Yes, and also, although we sort of thought, yes, we want to just stick to doing what we do, this is actually a brilliant way to open our eyes to doing something a bit more funky, a bit more modern. It may not be the look they originally envisaged for their country flowers, but as Jen's arrangements for the centrepieces go on the tables, the effect is stunning. Isn't that amazing? Absolutely lovely. No, it looks really cool. The hard-nosed professionals at the magazine are certainly impressed by the flowers. They don't seem quite as taken with Jen and Beck's approach to the flower business. We love the idea behind their proposition, but at the end of the day, they've got to be commercially viable. Part of their ethos is that people buy into them and they basically will just have whatever Jen and Beck have available, and I think that this definitely won't work in the wedding market. No, I think that's quite naive. They have to work with the bride-to-be and say, you know, what theme are you after? We can do anything that you would like, rather than saying, you know, leave it to us, we'll sort out all the flowers for you, you don't need to worry, because I tell you what, there's not many bride-to-be's that are like that. I think they see it as a question of just convincing people that what they're doing is wonderful and then they'll flock to them. And unless Jen and Beck are prepared to take them on and making them feel special, then they may not survive. The cousins have got the flowers nailed, but this will count for nothing if Jen and Beck can't overcome their fear of embracing the world of commerce. Vicky, do you object to that bard or do you like the quirkiness of it? No, I don't, I think it keeps it off. Gorgeous. The pair have been treating their farm like a hobby rather than a business. What, have you got any more of those there? More zinnias, yes. Yeah, OK. But by throwing them in at the deep end today, I hope they'll realise just how flexible and competitive they must be in order to survive. There's lots of different ways of doing something, like the hair flower thing, it was like, she's a little girl, so I would put little flowers in her hair, but no, they wanted something really big and lovely and it just looks great. From being initially sceptical, Jen and Beck are now impressed by the photo shoot and Vicky is impressed with Jen and Beck. Usually I work with florists that I've known for a long time and know their work very well, so for me this was a huge risk, but one that's really paid off. They look amazing, I feel quite proud of our flowers. It's probably, you know, up there with some of the best shoots we've done. Everything that I've asked them to do, they haven't been offended if I haven't liked something, which is fantastic. Jen and Beck rose to the challenge today magnificently, but has it changed the way that they will do business in the future? Did you enjoy it today? Yeah, it was fantastic. And did you think you were going to? No, I didn't. So what have you learned that you can take away from this? Probably now would be open to being a bit more flexible about what we do with our flowers, thinking outside the box. Many of the arrangements looked absolutely stunning, but they weren't rocket science to put together. I thought it was incredible to see the effect we could get with the help of all these people who are very much on trend. I think Jen and Beck have done well today. They did their arrangements, they look lovely, they were done in a way that they wouldn't normally handle, and I think they've come out with great credit. Now, pretty soon they are going to have to decide, is this a job? Is this something that is going to endure and grow? Or is it just a really well-meaning, entertaining hobby? It is September, six weeks since the Wedding Flowers magazine photo shoot, and I'm back in Kent to see Jen and Beck for the last time. I think what I want to see today are changes that Jen and Beck have made as a result of the experiences they've had. The first has got to be how they're selling their produce, have they got the website up and running? And I suppose this is really the crux of it, what's the commitment? The bleak site I saw when I first came to visit has been transformed. I'm delighted to find that the plot is ablaze with late summer flowers. The weeds are all on the compost heap and the place feels vibrant. This is a triumph, isn't it? It's fantastic. You know, all that work and now you've got flowers. And sowing into the most horrific soil. Absolutely awful. I can see that they've learnt lessons from the visit I sent them on to Wiggly Wiggler's flower farm in Herefordshire. Lots of foliage coming. Yeah, we've been planting more foliage. And is that a policy decision that you're going to bulk out the foliage? At the moment our bouquets are very flower heavy and they need to be a mixture of both. It's a way of not using all roses for a bouquet this size. I'm impressed by this new professionalism. I had also told them that it was vital that they had a website which could help communicate everything about them and their produce. Now, at last, this is ready. Now, I can't see a thing. I'm sorry about my glasses. Here we are. All our flowers are growing in our plot in Kent. Hand-tied, scented flowers, recycled. All the buzzwords are in there, aren't they? The cousins seem to have cracked it. Blooming Green's ethos and products are all finally coming across. This is your face on the world, isn't it? People who can't come here, the only way they can get to you is via this. So this is everything. But what is their strategy for dealing with customers? Can people buy stuff straight off the website? No, they need to contact us. I want to be able to buy a bouquet. I want to be able to buy that. I'd love for people to buy a bouquet direct from our website. We'll do bouquets on certain days, like, say, a couple of days a week. They're the days that they'll be delivered so that we can cope with the workload because, at the moment, it is still general. That seems to me to make a lot of sense. The wedding flowers edition, due to feature their flowers, will come out in six months' time and the cousins still don't know if their efforts were good enough to be published. It's time for a cup of tea and a piece of Jen's cake and a first look at the pictures. Now, have you got clean fingers? Yes, I have. Right, there you go. It all looks confidently professional and certainly reflects that they've come a long way in a few short months. How do you feel about these? Oh, I think they just look amazing. They look so cool. I want to know how the magazine shoot has focused the cousins on the way they package their flowers. Those pictures, do they represent blooming green? My favourite one is this one. Really? That is just so us, in terms of taking a very sort of humble country flower and then making it look totally gorgeous. Without realising, I think we'd started going a little bit down the twee country basket route when really we both like quirky, funky stuff. That's more us and I think that's what we got to do there. You were forced out of your comfort zone. Yeah, definitely. And that put you somewhere where you didn't really want to be but you're jolly glad you went. Absolutely, yeah. The cousins have made real strides, turning this place from a hobby into a business and there are measurable results too. They've gone from a £4,000 loss last year to breaking even at the end of this one. Fields looked after, cared. It was great, actually. Really enjoyed it and I think that Jen and Beck feel positive and there is a lot going for this business. However, I do think there are changes they need to make and probably need to make them pretty soon. So, this is it. Have Jen and Beck changed sufficiently and are they prepared to go on changing to make a success of their flower farm? All along, I get this impression that it's a bit of a hobby. You're not really giving yourselves to it but to make it work, you've got to commit and commit wholeheartedly. And I've one radical change I think these two need to make to sever this farm from its half-hearted roots. You, Beck, should run this place. Be the boss. I think you need to define your roles. They're a bit too cosy and comfy. This is a business. You should take charge of this place of what goes on and you should help her because Beck could do this without you. She'd get someone else but Jen, you couldn't do it without Beck. No, absolutely. And there are going to be times when you're going to say, actually, no, we're doing it this way because I'm running this joint. Give it your all. I think what you've got is so positive. Now you need to commit and make it grow. With a lot of hard work and a bit of luck, with Beck masterminding the farming and Jen in charge of the shop front, I believe the cousins have a flowering future from the land. Monty has made the dream seem more of a reality. I feel like he's definitely given us a kick up the backside. The home truth of the fact that Beck could do it without me but I couldn't do it without Beck was very true but it stung a little bit. And the cousins have resolved to stop treating the farm like a hobby and embrace it as a proper business. I feel very optimistic about the future and I also feel much more ready to make the commitment to living in Kent and running Blooming Green with Beck. I don't think it's going to be easy by any means, especially not for me because I'm trying to juggle children and all of that stuff but I can see that in the next few years it could well become a well-established business that will be, you know, really fulfilling for both of us. I think these two have got everything going for them. Their dream is rooted deep in a land that they know and love but to make the business flourish they've got to commit. They've got to give themselves entirely to the job in hand and if they do that I'm certain it'll grow and flourish.