Directory founder Gill Hodgson awarded MBE
We’re delighted to announce that our very own Gill Hodgson of Fieldhouse Flowers, Everingham in Yorkshire has been awarded an MBE for Services to Floristry in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025. Passionate about British-grown flowers and sustainability, she has been recognised for transforming the world of floristry in the UK. As well as being one of the driving forces behind our Directory which aims to connect people with florists who offer compostable, plastic-free funeral flowers, Gill is also the founder of Flowers from the Farm, an award-winning association championing artisan growers of British cut flowers.
Gill Hodgson, co-founder of the Farewell Flowers Direcory, has been recognised with an MBE in the King’s New Years Honours list for her services to UK floristry.
Gill says:
“I am utterly delighted to be awarded an MBE in recognition for my work in raising the profile of British flowers and for encouraging so many more people to make a career out of growing them for market. I couldn’t have achieved so much had it not been for the support of the wonderful past Chairs and Regional Co-ordinators of Flowers from the Farm who have worked alongside me and become lifelong friends.
Over the past decade British flowers have developed from an unknown, often denigrated, product into a top-class brand recognised everywhere for their quality. The tremendous boost of receiving this award means I'm really looking forward to 2025 and working with The Farewell Flowers Directory to bring similar success to the previously overlooked world of funeral flowers, taking them out of the shadows and into the limelight.”
Gill’s story
Gill launched her own flower farming business of Fieldhouse Flowers in Everingham, Yorkshire in 2010, selling from an honesty box at the farm gate. On discovering that there was no business organisation of flower growers she could join, she set about creating one. In 2011, Gill founded Flowers from the Farm, a not-for-profit membership association, in order to promote local, seasonal British cut flowers, to encourage more people to grow for market in the UK and to foster a spirit of friendship and cooperation amongst flower growers. Flowers from the Farm has now grown to 1000 member businesses across the UK, has scooped over 40 awards including a coveted RHS Gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and also supplied flowers to Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King Charles III. Gill herself has been recognised with a Prime Minister’s Points of Light award and a Northern Power Women award for her mentoring of others.
In May 2024, Gill embarked on her current mission, founding our directory which aims to remove plastic floral foam from funeral floristry and to demonstrate, in her own words “that you don’t have to sacrifice beauty for sustainability”.
We say
Congratulations Gill Hodgson MBE! We're thrilled that you’ve been recognised for your contribution to the world of UK flowers and floristry and we’re excited about what 2025 will bring!