We're excited to launch our 2024 limited edition Wildflower bag design with original artwork by Dani Mayes. 
 
Dani is a talented graphic designer and illustrator originally from West Wales, now based in Bristol & the South West. With over 15 years experience, Dani's creativity is grounded in simple, effective and honest design principles, specialising in branding, print & website design and illustration. We're lucky to have worked with Dani behind the scenes on our website and various projects over the past couple of years. 
 
In Autumn 2022 we dedicated a large area of a field on our smallholding to native wildflowers by preparing the land and sowing 26 different seed species. This inspired our 2024 limited edition bag. We asked Dani if she'd like to design the new bag and she kindly agreed. We're so happy with the result!
 
2024 - YEAR OF THE WILDFLOWERS
This year we want to highlight the importance of native wildflowers and their habitats. 
 
Why We Need Wildflowers
Wildflowers meadows are an amazing habitat. A haven for wildlife that heralds the start of spring, they’re an essential part of the UK landscape that’s sadly diminishing every year.
 
Wildflower Meadows
By definition, wildflowers are our native flowers, that are unaltered by people. All of the flowers found in your garden have been bred specifically for certain features, but they all actually originated from wildflowers.  
 
Great for Biodiversity
A single healthy meadow can be home to over 100 species of wildflowers, which in turn supports other meadow wildlife. For example, the common bird’s-foot trefoil is a food plant for 160 species of insects, which in turn support mammals and birds such as shrews and lapwings.
 
Food Source
Wildflowers provide bees, butterflies and other pollinators with food throughout the year. On a single day in summer, one acre of wildflower meadow can contain 3 million flowers, producing 1 kg of nectar sugar. That’s enough to support nearly 96,000 honey bees per day. Over a third of the world’s food relies on insects to pollinate them. Without insects, we’d need to artificially pollinate most of our favourite fruit and veg, which would be really time-consuming and very costly.
 
Flood Prevention
Established wildflower meadows have complex root systems, which makes the soil very stable. This helps to mitigate flooding by holding on to rain water, and stops nutrients from washing away.
 
Help Fight Disease
Native wildflowers can contain compounds which have made a significant contribution to modern medicine. Flowers such as self-heal have antibiotic properties  - there’s a clue in its common name, as folklore has recognised its healing properties for centuries. And foxgloves contain a compound called digitalin that can be used to treat heart disease. These are just two of many examples and scientists are discovering more all the time. 
 
Fight Climate Change
Grassland soils can sequester as much carbon as woodland and also reduces greenhouse gases, which can help us in the fight against climate change.
 
THEY'RE AT RISK
Since the 1930s, we’ve lost 97% of our wildflower meadows in the UK, which is a staggering amount and we need to act now to make sure they don’t completely disappear. 
 
*References sourced from wwf.org.uk
 
 
This bag contains approximately 3Kg of crushed whelk shells.  
 
Our handy Potting Cup is the perfect tool for scooping and decanting shells and other substrates.
 
*This is a natural product from the sea and we do our best to remove any foreign material. 
 
*Limited Edition bags are available until sold out.