About Silver Grey Foliage
Welcome to Silver Grey Foliage. We are a Flower Farm, in Headingley, just north of Leeds City Centre, West Yorkshire.
We're a family business run by me, Rebecca, and my husband, Antony.
We started our quest to grow interesting, scented, seasonal flowers here in Leeds 3 years ago. We’re self taught flower growers with not an ounce of formal horticultural training between us. But after 3 years of learning on the job, reading and listening to experts we trust, we've become pretty good at it!
We work with the land and the weather to grow seasonal, scented flowers and foliage, at scale between March and December. We grow for florists, DIY weddings, local subscriptions and gift bouquets.
We grow flowers so that you can come and cut them, hold them, touch them, stare at them, turn them, create with them, be inspired by them, loose yourself in them and take them home.
We love growing Eucalyptus so much that our business is named (Silver Grey Foliage) after the classical colour of the best named varieties.
We want you to know what you’re getting, where it comes from and who is involved. Keep reading to know more.
Our flower farm is across two sites. The first is our garden - which is also where we have our workshop. And the second is a field that we rent from Farmer Paul in Adel.
We work hard and so we expect the land we use to work hard too. To help our land work hard we take care to nurture it. So we don’t dig, unless we have to. We feed our soil with seaweed, manure and green waste to encourage more nutrition and to support and grow healthy soil microorganisms and top quality soil structure. We cover our soil to stop it from being eroded and we rest our soil as much as possible over winter so that it is ready to serve us again in spring.
We have farmer/florist hands. They’re not soft and the dirt is hard to scrub away. Because we handle and design with our flowers, we care just as much about what is on them as we do about how they look and smell. So we spray them with seaweed and go to long lengths to avoid pesticide use. Growing our flowers this way encourages natural predators into our growing spaces which balance out the biodiversity perfectly for us.
These practices grow flowers that turn heads whether in your home or at your wedding. We grow interesting varieties of flowers that make flowers a talking point. We grow the colours that stand out and the shapes that are too delicate to travel long distances. We grow flowers others may forget and heirloom species that gardens should be filled with. To gether these flowers make my heart sing. I hope that you will feel the same.
So our flowers are:
For people who love flowers to look and smell like flowers,
For people who notice the seasons around them.
For people who want to notice more of what nature brings at each time of the year.
For people who want to get their hands on nature as it is meant to be.
For people who want to create something beautiful - experts and dabblers are both so very welcome.
I’m always happy to answer your questions. Please feel free to contact me using the form. I can’t wait to help you on your flowery path.
Rebecca