Sheffield’s first Flower Festival brought together flower lovers, growers and creatives across two venues in Neepsend and Kelham Island on Sunday 23 August.
The event was organised by Bloom Sheffield, a community flower garden in Heeley that provides a safe space for women and non-binary people to learn new skills.
The festival took place at The Mowbray and The Victoria, offering visitors a day of flowers, workshops, a variety of talks and local produce.
At The Mowbray, visitors could explore a flower market showcasing Yorkshire-grown blooms, alongside stalls selling ceramics, candles, botanical art and houseplants. The Victoria hosted floristry demonstrations, talks and creative workshops, including a small-space growing talk from Gardeners’ World presenter Rekha Mistry and an Ikebana demonstration from Junko Popham.
Bloom Sheffield founder and company director Kendall Turner said the idea for the festival had “been in my head for a while”.
“I really wanted an opportunity to bring amazing creative people together to share their love of flowers,” she said. “Sheffield has such a rich culture of growing and creating, so it seemed perfect.”
Turner said the event was also an opportunity to bring the community together.
“At Bloom Sheffield, we work with lots of different people from the community, who all have a shared love and passion for flowers and gardening,” she said. “It feels so special to be able to bring people together and celebrate the beauty of the season.”
She said the response from florists and businesses had been “amazing”, with “community over competition” becoming the festival’s motto.
Turner hoped visitors would leave having “learned something new”, whether through a workshop, talk or discovering “a new dahlia variety that they’ve never seen before”.
Bloom Sheffield began seven years ago with the aim of creating a welcoming space for women and non-binary people to grow flowers and learn from one another. It has since expanded from an overgrown allotment to four community flower gardens across Sheffield, welcoming around 200 people each month.
People can get involved through the organisation’s Saturday Gather & Grow gardening sessions or its eight-week Gardening To Feel Good therapeutic horticulture groups.
Bloom also sells Sheffield-grown flowers from its shop on Chesterfield Road in Woodseats, with Turner describing it as “purchase with a purpose”, as the organisation is not-for-profit and puts its income back into supporting women in the community.
For more details see:
Instagram: https://www.bloomsheffield.com
Website: https://www.instagram.com/sheffieldflowerfestival?igsi=ZW42OHNiYW41a3Ix
Main picture: A visitor at the flower festival.