Cottage Gardens: Favorite Flowers, with Grace Alexander's Seeds - Gardenista
Cottage Gardens: Favorite Flowers, with Grace Alexander's Seeds - Gardenista
Behind a little row of thatched church cottages in the picture-postcard village of Corfe, Somerset lies Grace Alexander’s magical flower garden.
Photography by Roger Bool.
The florist turned seed grower has transformed a third of an acre field behind her pretty cottage garden into a bucolic space where she can grow the flowers she loves and then collect their seeds.
A packet of Nigella Seeds is £2. As seeds were such a popular gift, why not present them in a way that made them a real indulgence with packaging that was just as beautiful as the bounty of flowers that would one day grow from the seeds?
She sourced gorgeous khadi paper from India—this sustainable but beautiful material is made from recycled cotton T-shirt off-cuts—and then found a copper plate engraver who could embellish each of her seed packets with an appropriate quote from British florist Constance Spry.
Alexander grows flowers for bouquets.
A curated Muddy Cut Flower Collection of seeds is £15. Muddy, as the name suggests, includes muted, dusty shades of Phlox ‘Crème Brûlée’, Nicotiana ‘Tinkerbell’, Scabiosa ‘Fata Morgana’, and Atriplex hortensis.
Summer flowers in Alexander’s garden. A Fresh collection includes white and green: light and airy Cosmos ‘Purity’, Ammi majus, Nigella ‘Miss Jekyll’, and Bells of Ireland.
There are special wildlife mixes too, and seeds for any plants that Alexander doesn’t grow herself are sourced by UK wholesalers.
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