Petalon is a new flower delivery company making it easier, more accessible and greener to send flowers in London. Two different bouquets are offered every week and chosen depending on what’s in season and looks particularly fantastic at the market. Petalon flowers are always delivered by bicycle and always cost £20 with £2 of every bunch donated to Capital Bee, a London not-for-profit campaigning for bee-friendly practices.
Petalon proprietor, Florence Hill, recently got in touch with me to see if I might want to write about her “bouquets by bicycle” business. It turned out that we’re neighbours and an impromptu knees up at the local soon ensued. I was immediately impressed with Florence’s enthusiasm and by her huge and radiant smile. She seems to be onto something good with Petalon, if only for her own fitness and sunny disposition.
Florence and I decided the best way for me to help spread the word about her environmentally friendly enterprise would be to hand my blog over to her for a “day in the life” piece about what she does. Here is the lovely result of that decision. Enjoy.
Petalon Flowers: View from My Saddle
5am
Yeah, early starts are all part of the process if you want to get the good stuff at the flower market! Our local wholesalers are only a ten minute cycle away, through Hackney Marshes and with views over the Olympic Park it’s pretty special at sunrise.
The market is another world. Open from midnight until 10am with huge Artic lorries, fork lift trucks and transit vans weaving in and around towering stacks of mangoes, parsnips, lychee and everything in between – specialising in exotic fruit and veg, it’s Europe’s leading horticultural market.
I park my bicycle and trailer behind a pile of broken fork lift trucks to keep it safe from lorry death and go see what flowers are in today. The lovely lads in the giant flower fridge greet me with sugary tea and a rundown of what’s new in this morning with special care to point out what’s British. I spend the next hour deliberating over what goes into the bouquets for the new week’s choice.
Colin (think flower bouncer) helps me get my loot in the trailer and I pedal back to the workshop for breakfast before taking the dog for a quick spin around the park.
8am to 12pm
I start taking orders for the day and putting together bouquets. As we do same day delivery I take orders until I leave for delivery in the afternoon. There’s a lot of thorn stripping and stem snipping to make the bouquets look their best. I create a water source for each bunch and wrap them in Hessian before neatly writing out the messages to send today. It’s so good to see people sending flowers for special reasons that aren’t grand occasions – “Thank you so much for dinner last night!” “only one week of work left before our holiday!” – it’s exactly how I wanted people to use Petalon.
12pm
After loading the trailer with deliveries for the day the rest of the afternoon is spent cycling the streets of London delivering beautiful flowers. Planning each day’s route is pretty fun, and I get to see parts of the city I’ve never been to before. Petalon delivers as far west as Hyde Park, and as far south as Bermondsey. So, I cover a lot of ground – it’s at least 20 miles a day so it’s definitely keeping me fit!
5pm
That’s the bulk of my day done. I spend the rest of the evening concentrating on the business side of Petalon, catching up on emails, doing all the less glamorous admin and relaxing with my partner James and dog Huxley.
Photography and writing by Florence Hill. Find out more about how Florence is making flower delivery in London simple, accessible and bee-friendly at petalon.co.uk.
