Growing CUT FLOWERS has transformed Helier Bowling’s career as well as her Hampshire plot
BEFORE
AFTER
We all dream of having a garden full of flowers, but Helier Bowling has not only turned the fantasy into a reality, but a flourishing and life-changing career too. From selling bouquets to running online seed-sowing classes, and now designing gardens, the blooms that fill former solicitor Helier’s half-an-acre Hampshire plot are at the heart of everything she has achieved. “My goal was to have colour through the year, structure and form with the ebb and flow of seasonal colour, plus a working garden of flowers grown for cutting, touching, smelling, for things to cut, arrange, keep and give,” she explains. “But the goal just grew and grew!”
It’s hard to imagine the overgrown plot Helier started with, viewing the vibrant sea of flowers of today. So how do you go about turning a plot riddled with ground elder and overwhelmed with shrubs, heather and conifers into a cutting-garden triumph? “With lots of digging!” Helier laughs. “I couldn’t plant anything because of the mass of ground elder roots under the soil. I didn’t want to use weedkiller as I garden organically, so one day I decided to dig it all out, square metre by square metre. It became strangely enjoyable and therapeutic! I can’t say that the ground elder never comes back – but when it does it’s much easier to dig out quickly.”
In comparison, growing all the flowers is easy. “A small amount of seedlings planted out yields a huge amount of flowers,” Helier imparts. “Sowing a few seeds and nurturing a small number of seedlings is something that you can fit into a busy life, whether you’re out working or looking after small children. I find I can fit looking after my cut flower garden into 10-20 minute parcels of time, and I do a little every day.”
GARDEN GOALS
When Helier and husband James moved to the property 18 years ago, it was the outdoor space that she loved the most, with a fabulous view of the valley beyond, and bursting with potential. With ground elder extracted, conifers and heather removed, the old wooden decking was replaced with a slate patio. And although the basic structure of the plot’s three terraced levels hasn’t changed much, the journey through the space from the house, as well as the view from the south-facing patio, is now altogether different. Helier walks through it with us: “The first lawn is surrounded by beds, with the ornamental grasses bed dividing the first and secon
