The story behind Maple Foxglove

Since 2017

Laura Caldwell started Maple Foxglove in the autumn of 2017 with a secondhand van, a folding table, and a pitch at the Saturday market. She'd spent the previous eight years in garden design, which taught her a lot about how plants grow but very little about how to run a flower stall in the rain. The first winter was hard. She sold out some weeks and came home with a full van on others. By spring 2018 she had a small but loyal group of regulars who'd started texting her directly to reserve bunches before the market opened.

The studio came in 2019, a converted outbuilding on the edge of the market district with enough bench space for two people and a cold room that took three weeks to get right. Around the same time, Laura started growing her own stock on a half-acre plot about four miles out of town, starting with sweet peas, dahlias, and a long row of foxgloves that gave the business half its name. The other half came from the old maple in the corner of the plot, which turns a particular shade of copper every October that she's never quite managed to replicate in an arrangement.

Flowers grown slow, arranged with care