How a simple supper led me to ditch the scrubs to become a luxury flower farmer

Monday 4 March 2024

Hi, I’m Angharad Maxwell and I own and run Hilltop Flowers, a luxury flower farm based in the hills of East Belfast overlooking Strangford Lough, Scrabo Tower and the Mourne Mountains. I grow high-end, sustainable cut flowers using only organic growing methods.

The global cut flower industry has one of the biggest environmental impacts of imported fresh produce. Over 90% come from outside the UK and Ireland where they are heavily sprayed with pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals to preserve them during transport. This has a direct impact on climate change, people and pollinators. But at Hilltop Flowers we are bucking the trend by growing seasonal, fresh, blooms with as much scent as possible.
I grow many varieties that can’t be sourced elsewhere and my flowers are chemical-free, unique, freshly picked and sustainably farmed. I work with nature and pollinators to produce the highest quality cut flowers which I sell to the public and to high-end florists. Brought up on a dairy farm in rural Wales, I always loved the outdoors and farming, but my career journey initially took me down a very different path working as a senior physiotherapist. But ten years ago, a simple gift from a friend sparked the idea for a complete change of career.

My friend arrived for dinner with a bottle of wine in one hand and the most beautiful scented, hand-tied bouquet I had ever seen in the other. She had picked the flowers from her back garden and I realised that I was growing all the same blooms and more in my own garden. And so I started picking flowers to make bouquets to give as gifts to family and friends.
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As I began growing more and more flowers, I bought flower farming books and attended cut flower courses, all with the intention of just growing more blooms for my own use. I had the opportunity to take part in a workshop in the London studio of Belfast-born, royal florist Shane Connelly which opened my eyes to the scope of the British flower industry. Friends kept asking me to consider growing flowers professionally but with a job I already loved, a guaranteed monthly income and a young family, it just wasn’t an option.

However, in 2021, a change in circumstances would see me take stock and reconsider my future career. The hours I was working no longer fit with family life. I was expecting my third child and my younger brother was diagnosed with cancer, all of which led to the realisation that I needed a job that would be more flexible.

So I started planning my flower farm, by attending more flower farming courses, creating sowing and planting schedules and visiting flower farms in Wales and England. In 2022 the opportunity arose for me to rent half an acre of land and half an industrial polytunnel, and so Hilltop Flowers was born.
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Since then, I’ve been digging, planting, sowing, investing in infrastructure and selling luxury cut flowers to customers as bouquets, for those doing DIY wedding flowers and wholesale, to high-end wedding florists. We also advise and teach people how they can plant a garden full of flowers, which they can also pick for themselves. As a former physiotherapist, the physical and mental health benefits of gardening are something I’m really passionate about. Whether you're new to gardening or an old hand, whether you’ve a garden or a balcony, anyone can learn how to grow beautiful flowers that can be enjoyed outside or cut for a jug or vase.

With all elements of floristry grown on site – focal flowers, fillers and foliage – I have big plans to continue expanding each year with more and more planting taking place. I have invested in my own industrial polytunnel where more luxury roses will be grown undercover. I have also invested in unique peony varieties to increase my stock of high-end blooms. The future is looking rosy for Hilltop Flowers and I love it!

For further information please contact:

Angharad Maxwell at Hilltop Flowers

Email: info@hilltopflowers.co.uk

Mobile: 07732 080371

www.hilltopflowers.co.uk

@hilltopflowers

Available for: written articles, (magazines/blogs/journals), speaking events, podcasts, monthly gardening/flower farming columns, television and photoshoots for brands/products. Professional photographs are available for use in publications about Hilltop Flowers.

Monday 4 March 2024