Hello, I'm Tara and run Thistle Cottage Flower Farm near Dallington in the East Sussex countryside.
My passion for British flowers began at an early age when my parents took over a small flower farm and supplied top London florists with freshly cut flowers. I have happy memories of packing my Mum's small white Mini with boxes of roses, nicotiana and other gorgeous blooms and driving up to London at the crack of dawn. To this day the fragrance of nicotiana takes me straight back to those early morning deliveries and handing over boxes brimming with flowers amongst a flurry of florist activity.
A love of flowers, gardening and the English countryside continued to grow over the years.  After a career travelling the world as BA cabin crew, it was time to put my feet back firmly on the ground and I was inevitably drawn back to horticulture. I retrained under the RHS and started growing and supplying cut flowers on a small scale to my local farm shop.  Then in 2021 Thistle Cottage Flower Farm was born.
I love to grow beautiful, seasonal, scented British cut flowers straight from the field.  Flowers which have natural movement, gorgeous scent and colour and haven't travelled half way across the world.  Flowers for bouquets, wedding buckets and subscription flowers, not forgetting the Friday flowers which go on to my farm gate stand each week through the season.