My grandmother used to grow giant amaryllis on our windowsill. They looked like flaming birds against the wintery white-and-grey landscape outside. Every summer we went back to the countryside to grow things, from the basics like potatoes and carrots to the things that feed the soul, bushes and bushes of roses. In the wild, bright blue cornflowers peppered the golden rows of wheat under an endless big sky, and at the end of May, the beginning of June, there was a brief moment when the lily of the valley overtook the chilly forest floor and filled the air with its perfume. I remember collecting buckets and buckets of it. Only now do I realise how precious and rare that was.
I grew up planting, growing, foraging and picking whatever the land was giving, and it only seemed natural to continue that at Villa Lena. The abundance of flowers here gave way to offering floral arrangements, something that only grew with time. The team has grown from one singular Paul to a group of wonderful women: Irina, Alex, Anastasia and me, whose philosophy is to turn a client’s vision into reality through the language of flowers.
Our proposition is a rare one. We don’t only create floral compositions, we grow many of the flowers at Villa Lena ourselves, with unbridled passion. We know which dahlia variety is best and when, when that fleeting moment arrives to enjoy the local peonies, and where to find the wild orchids in the fields. Our flowers are organically grown, and we use sustainable methods for every arrangement, avoiding non-biodegradable floral foam entirely. The forms and colours nature provides will always make a flower far more special than anything of industrial greenhouse standard.
We are students of nature who will never graduate. We can spend years and years learning and watching, only to find that nature’s variations are endless. There is joy in that: whatever we do, this source of knowledge will never run dry.
