Why start a directory for funeral flowers?

Who are we? We’re Gill Hodgson (right, Fieldhouse Flowers, Yorkshire) and Carole Patilla (below, Tuckshop Flowers, Birmingham). We met twelve years ago as members of Flowers From The Farm - the national association of cut flower growers which Gill founded and of which Carole was a co-chair.

We’ve built The Farewell Flowers Directory to help people find gentler, more natural funeral flowers: we want to make it easier to find a more personal type of floral tribute at a difficult time.

Why we feel strongly about funeral flowers

We’ve both made funeral flowers for years and we’ve seen for ourselves the solace and comfort gained from being able to put ‘just-right’ flowers on the coffins of people we’ve loved. We know that the best flowers are purposefully chosen after a conversation between families, friends and florists rather than being a flower arrangement being picked at random from a funeral director’s catalogue.

Snowdrops on a simple compostable and sustainable woven wreath by Fieldhouse Flowers, Yorkshire.

We want everyone to know there’s a choice. It’s sad, but completely understandable, that the path of least resistance is often the easiest one to take when you need funeral flowers. By starting this directory, we want to lay a new path which is just as easy to for you to follow but which leads to something special and different.

Choosing the flowers for a funeral is one of myriad decisions a family must make in the days straight after a death. For many in this situation, flowers might be just another thing to tick off the list. Some funeral directors might present you with a brochure to choose the flowers you’d like: a brochure full of designs that haven’t altered for decades and which are made to a recipe. This ‘catalogue’ driven approach is accepted (expected?) and familiar but gives florists little opportunity to use their skills to create more personal tributes. It also requires them to use plastic floral foam even if, given a personal choice, they might prefer to work more sustainably.

We want to change this, and the florists on our directory have chosen to work in a different way.

They’re able to create bespoke arrangements with no plastic and no wires; arrangements that will contain at least some British flowers or foliage and they’re eager to work with your own wishes or ideas to create something of real relevance to the life that’s just ended:

• The mum who spent all her time in the garden and who was eagerly awaiting the first signs of spring need no longer be remembered with regimented roses when she would rather have had snowdrops and crocus.

• The grandfather who loved his allotment might not have wanted a tribute of ubiquitous white lilies but might have chuckled to be laid to rest under an arrangement of cabbages, marigolds and carrots.

Boots made for a man who loved walking and the countryside, and who wore a red rose in his wedding buttonhole. By Tuckshop Flowers, Birmingham.

The comfort that can be gained from talking about the person who has died, and exploring the way in which they’d have chosen to be remembered can help, and our florists will be pleased to have this conversation with you.

There’s another world of lovely designs and gorgeous flowers out there; different flowers that can truly mirror the likes, dislikes and foibles of the person who’s just died and it’s a world we’re making easier to explore.

We want to change the world of funeral flowers one arrangement at a time.