All items by The Ludlow Flower Forager

Growing, foraging and creating with seasonally gathered materials - dried and preserved

Hi there Folksy-folk, I’m Kim and I’m pleased to virtually meet you.
I trained and practiced as a florist for many years before developing my career in retail and business development, but returned to flowers a few years ago when I bought my riverside cottage in Shropshire with it’s sunny aspect and raised beds. It’s a small but productive plot, where I grow fresh flowers for cutting and many for drying.

I specialise in dried flowers, using them to make seasonally inspired pieces for customers locally, and run workshops through the year, teaching others a little about sustainable, ethical and legal foraging practices alongside my own techniques for making great everlasting wreaths.

I forage with full permission on friend’s farms - in Shropshire, Gloucestershire and mid Wales for wild grasses and seed-heads, oak, beech and bracken and incorporate these into my work. These are carefully dried, preserved and stored to be added to all my pieces, year-round.
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I’m known for my natural hazel hearts and wreaths, posies and bunches, wreath kits and my endless supply of pheasant feathers!

My busiest season is winter, when I make masses of festive evergreen wreaths for customers, into January when I cut and weave the fresh hazel frames for the following season’s work..
Every month of the year has its’ treasures - from January to December I will be scouting out good new materials to collect and seeds to plant, there’s never a day without something interesting tucked into my foraging bag - whether it’s a pine cone, a lichen covered twig or a piece of driftwood..

My interest in wild plants and flowers has grown beyond purely gathering, I spend many hours walking every day with my trusty companion - Skipper AKA foragey-dog, observing, photographing, identifying and researching our finds.

We are truly in tune with the seasons and the environment about us, following the wilder footpaths and quieter lanes.

You’ll see me on Instagram and Facebook as The Ludlow Flower Forager, where you can keep up to date with all the flowery things I make and find, beyond those I list here on Folksy.

I love to experiment with techniques to preserve my finds, some succeed an some fail, but the ongoing research is worth pursuing, and you’ll find many stories on my instagram page revolve around my daily finds, fails and triumphs.

I hope you’ll appreciate the truly artisan nature of my work, knowing that although I supplement my own produce with a few extras from a local, specialist dried flower farm ( when I can’t get just the right colour or texture, myself ) by far the greatest volume of my ingredients have been picked, grown, preserved and carefully stored throughout the seasons, ready for the pieces that I make and sell.