Organic Blooms
As their name may have given away, Organic Blooms are sellers of organic cut flowers, which they nurture and grow at their plant nursery near Bristol.
It’s not just the flowers which undergo a transformation here. Part of what makes Organic Blooms special is their social purpose of training and supporting disadvantaged local adults in a real work environment. Trainees might have learning difficulties or mental health support needs and find it hard to access paid employment.
Organic Blooms share the therapeutic wonders of growing flowers together with the practical side of running a nursery and floristry business. Trainees learn skills for the workplace but also develop confidence, make friends and find ways to heal. Along the way, they also gain City & Guilds horticulture qualifications, setting them up for new roles beyond the programme.
Caring for the planet goes hand in hand with caring for people at Organic Blooms. These are flowers you can enjoy all the more knowing they’re grown without the use of toxic chemicals, in a way that keeps the local ecology healthy and is approved by the Soil Association.
Practices like carefully planned crop rotation, no-dig principles and accepting that a proportion of flowers will be lost to pests are the planet-friendly norm in the Organic Blooms fields. Plus, all the flowers are truly seasonal, chosen because they thrive in the nursery’s microclimates. Not a single bloom is ever unnaturally forced.
All of this turns one of life’s little luxuries – fresh cut flowers – into something impactful as well as joyful.
Jo Wright was a therapeutic horticulturalist for many years before setting up Organic Blooms in 2006.
Inspiration for the biz struck at a friend’s wedding, where she realised she could have grown all of the flowers in the bouquets and arrangements. Jo started providing flowers for friends from a few beds, a space which had bloomed into four acres by 2012.
Jo became more and more interested in organic practices over the course of her career. She was determined Organic Blooms would actively protect and improve soil health, an approach that made them one of the very first Soil Association-certified flower growers in the UK.
And of course, that environmental impact is matched by the social impact of the Organic Blooms training programme, making for some seriously ethical blooms.
Founded By
Jo Wright
