Finding my way back to myself through flowers

April 26, 2026

My first season at Tallulah Rose Flower School was in autumn. But it wasn’t the beginning of my floral journey.

When I was little (and all through my school life), I loved to create. Drawing, painting, stitching and crafting.

In my twenties, I found flowers. They became my new paint palette. Texture, colour, depth and movement my paintbrushes.

Life moved on, as it does, and flowers moved to the background for a while but I have carried a quiet floral dream ever since.

I kept an eye on Tallulah Rose for years, quietly drawn to it, not quite ready to leap. But the leap came. And it came in autumn.

I had experienced an impossibly difficult couple of years, followed by pregnancy loss.

I really needed to do something for myself. To experience joy again. I wanted to live in possibility.

What I didn’t anticipate was just how magical the experience would be…

The most unexpected gift

The most unexpected gift was the people.

Daisy put me at ease the moment I walked through the door. Confident and funny, she is the kind of person who makes a room feel less intimidating simply by being in it. Already working as a florist, she shared everything so freely, always ready to help. Her style was bold, abundant and full of energy.

Faye, who joined us from the US, wrapped us all in her gentleness. Thoughtful, beautiful, kind, I felt very lucky to have her as my table buddy, sharing the daily rhythm of learning alongside her. Her style was completely distinctive. She paired surprising colours and textures together, yet they came together so naturally, like a beautiful garden. There was a deep connection between Faye and the flowers in front of her, as though she was simply responding to what they were asking for.

Cora had made a huge life shift to be there, stepping out of a corporate career to do something completely different with her life. She was curious, engaged, present and brave. Her style was beautifully feminine and she put so much care into everything she made, attentive to every detail.

There is something powerful about being held by a group of women while you are learning and slightly vulnerable. Each of us came from different places, different versions of life but we met in this shared space of learning and becoming.

Rachel’s teaching

At the heart of everything was Rachel.

Her way of teaching stays with you. It’s gentle, sprinkled with fun, deeply knowledgeable and inspiring. There’s an openness to how she holds a space – nothing rigid or performative. Just a steady belief that people can learn, grow and find their own way.

Her message was simple: there is no ‘wrong way’. Trust in your own intuition. Lean into the style that comes naturally to you. No formulas. No prescriptions. Trust your feelings, not rules.

Rachel has created something truly special at Tallulah Rose. It is not just a place to learn the art of flowers, but a place where you are encouraged to trust yourself. By now, she must have changed the trajectory of hundreds, if not thousands, of lives – mostly women, although some men pass through the doors too.

We Tallulahs leave carrying a shift in confidence and in how we view our own potential.

Working with flowers again

One of the things that drew me to Tallulah Rose Flower School is their commitment to sustainable floristry. Rachel is an advocate for sustainable practices and crucially, using British grown flowers. (There’s so much more I could say on imported flowers and why that matters, which I’ve written about separately here.)

I admit that I was a little worried about what British flowers in November might look like and whether we would have much to work with. But I was met with dahlias, chrysanthemums (not like the ones you see in a supermarket!), scabious and so much more. All in a fantastic array of pinks, oranges, yellows, purples.

During my time at Tallulah Rose, I began to understand my style more clearly. I work intuitively, allowing space for softness and gentle movement, composing with an eye for form, colour, and balance. I choose each stem for its individual beauty—the delicate curve of a petal, the quiet twist of a stem that has reached towards the sun, the soft watercolour-like hues within a bloom. Nothing forced, nothing overworked. Just flowers allowed to be themselves.

The Cumbrian landscape

I love to walk. For me, it is like hitting a ‘reset’ button and so I knew that I wanted to be able to walk to flower school each day. I found a lovely cottage within walking distance of Levens Hall, where Tallulah Rose is based. My husband and our dogs, Freya and Gyda, joined me.

Once part of the old village pub, the cottage had plenty of character. We had a small yard outside and just beyond that, a field of sheep. Next to us stood an old church, with a footpath leading up to the valley behind it.

Each morning, I walked the distance to school looking out towards the Cumbrian hills in the distance with open sky above me, bird song all around. In one nearby village, knitted poppies lined a grass verge for Remembrance Day and I loved walking past these each day.

Evenings come quickly in November and the journey back to the cottage was often in fading light with the sun just coming over the horizon. Back at the cottage, I would end the day reading a floristry book, eating good food and sitting in front of the fire.

What I took away

That autumn at Tallulah Rose didn’t just bring me back to flowers. It helped me find my way back to myself. Being at Levens Hall confirmed what I knew in my heart – flowers are my joy. I lose myself in them like I do with nothing else.

And on the very first day, something happened that has stayed with me. A ladybird walked across a delicate flower that I had chosen to work with. For my husband and I, ladybirds are a way of remembering our lost baby. I am not usually a spiritual person but I could not help but feel it was a meaningful sign – like i was being shown I was in the right place, doing the right thing.