A shop, not a website with a warehouse

We will send you a photograph of the actual flowers before they go.

Marchmont has been on Bridge Street since 1989. Everything is made here, in the shop, out of whatever came back from the market on Tuesday — and you will see exactly what we made before the van leaves, not a stock photograph somebody shot in a studio six years ago.

See this week’s bouquets Ring the shop

No relay orders, ever 37 years on Bridge Street Same-day before 11am

The lit window of a florist’s shop at dusk, with a woman looking in from the pavement

This week

What is actually in the buckets

Every other florist's website shows you the same forty photographs in January and in July. Flowers do not work like that. This is what came back from the market on Tuesday morning, and the second list is the one worth reading — it is what we have not got, and why.

The board

Week of 24 August · updated Tuesday

In, and worth having

DahliasThe best thing in the shop right now and it will last four more weeks. Deep reds and a coral that sells out by Thursday.
Cosmos and scabiousCut from a grower eleven miles away, picked the same morning. Soft, loose, and they look like a garden rather than an arrangement.
HydrangeaGoing over into the antique greens and rusts, which is when they are at their best and when they dry well.
Eucalyptus, ammi, grassesThe greenery is good all year. This is what stops a bunch looking like a supermarket one.
RosesDutch, all year, and honestly the least interesting thing we sell in August. We will still make you a beautiful one.

Not this week, and why

PeoniesFinished in early July. Anyone selling you British peonies in August is selling you something that has been on a plane, and it will open in a day.
TulipsDone by May. They come back in the new year and they are worth waiting for.
Sweet peasTwo weeks left at most and they are going over. If you want them, this week rather than next.
RanunculusA spring flower. November at the earliest and properly good in February.
Anything dyed blueWe do not do it. It is a white chrysanthemum standing in ink and it goes brown at the edges. Ask and we will show you.

If you want something that is not on the first list, ring us. We go to market on Tuesday and Friday and can bring most things back with two days' notice — we will tell you honestly whether it will be any good at this time of year before you pay for it.

Bouquets

Four we make every week, in three sizes

The photographs are ours and they are recent. What arrives will be the same shape, the same colours and the same size — made from what is on the board above, which is why it will not be flower-for-flower identical, and why it will be better.

Most ordered A bouquet of pink garden roses wrapped in paper

Bridge Street

Garden roses, dahlias and whatever is soft that week. The one people send when they are not sure what to send.

Small$46
Medium$58
Large$74

A cream and white bouquet of peonies and roses held in one hand

The Quiet One

Cream, white and green, nothing loud. What we send to hospitals, to sympathy, and to people who do not like a fuss.

Small$52
Medium$65
Large$84

Seasonal

A brightly coloured mixed bouquet laid on a marble surface in peach paper

Market Day

Whatever was best on Tuesday, in as much colour as we can get away with. Different every single week and the one we would pick for ourselves.

Small$40
Medium$54
Large$70

A simple bunch of white daisies wrapped in kraft paper

Just a Bunch

One thing, lots of it, in paper and nothing else. For the kitchen table on a Friday rather than for an occasion.

One size$28
Every Friday$24 a week
Fortnightly$26 each

Sympathy

We have done the flowers for most of the funerals in this town for thirty years. Ring rather than order online — it takes four minutes and we will ask the right questions, including the ones the family have not thought of.

From $65 · ring the shop

Weddings

Two a month, no more, because the alternative is doing them badly. Come in with a photograph of a dress and a rough number and we will tell you honestly what the budget will and will not stretch to.

Consultation is free · book in

Every Friday

A standing bunch for the house, left in the porch if you are out. It is the cheapest thing we sell and the thing customers keep the longest — some of them since the nineties.

From $24 a week · cancel any time

The big flower websites are not florists.

They are advertising companies. You order from a photograph, they keep somewhere between a quarter and a third of what you paid, and the rest gets passed to whichever shop is nearest the address with instructions to make something for the money that is left. That is why what turns up so rarely looks like the picture — the picture was never a promise anybody made, and the florist who made your bouquet never saw it. We do not take relay orders and we never have. If you ring this number you are talking to the person who will cut the stems.

Before it goes

You are buying something you will never see

That is the strange thing about sending flowers, and it is the reason people are nervous about it. You pay, it goes to somebody else's house, and unless they think to send you a picture you will never find out whether it was any good.

Photographed on the bench
Every bouquet, finished, before it is wrapped for the van. Not a stock shot and not the one on this page — yours, on the day.
Sent to whoever paid, not whoever receives it
So the surprise stays a surprise. If you would rather not have the text, say so and we will not send one.
If it is not right, say so before it leaves
You have got until the van goes. We would much rather remake it in the shop than have it arrive and disappoint somebody, and there is no charge for that.
And a week later, if it died early
Flowers are perishable and sometimes a batch is bad. Tell us and we will replace it, no argument and no photograph required. It happens four or five times a year.

A florist’s hands wrapping a finished bouquet in paper on the bench

The shop

Three of us, one bench, and a van that is older than the website

Ellen Marchmont opened it in 1989 and her daughter runs it now. It is a small shop and it will stay one — we turn work away in December rather than take on more than we can make properly, which annoys people every year and is still the right call.

Come in. You are allowed to just look, you are allowed to buy one stem, and you are allowed to ask what something is called. Half of what we know we learned because somebody stood at that counter and asked.

1989On Bridge Street

2×Market, every week

0Relay orders taken

A florist arranging flowers at a workbench in the shop

Reviews

What Netherby says

I ordered from one of the big sites for my mother's birthday two years running and both times what arrived was miserable. Rang Marchmont instead, got a photo at half eleven of the actual bunch, and my mother sent me a picture of it four days later still going strong.

S. AinsworthNetherby

I asked for peonies in August because I did not know any better. She explained why not, showed me the dahlias instead, and I have thought about that bunch ever since. It would have been easier to just take my money.

R. DanquahNetherby

They did my father's funeral in March. I could not get the words out on the phone and it did not matter, because she had done a hundred of them and asked me about him instead of about flowers. I do not really know how to review that.

M. KowalczykNetherby

Questions

The ones we get asked

Will it look exactly like the photograph?

The same shape, the same colours and the same size — but not flower for flower, because we make it out of what is good that week rather than out of a warehouse. Anybody promising you an identical bouquet in February and August is either flying it in or showing you a picture of something they will not be sending. You will see ours before it goes, which is the honest version of the same promise.

How late can I order for today?

Eleven in the morning for the same day, and in practice we will usually squeeze one in until about half past one if you ring rather than use the form. Sunday and Monday the shop is shut and nothing goes out.

Where do you deliver, and what does it cost?

Netherby and six villages — Thornbury, Millbrook, Bellwood, Ashgate, Rowan and Hartley — at a flat $6. Beyond that we will usually say no rather than put a bouquet in a van for fifty minutes, and we will tell you which florist to ring instead.

What if nobody is in?

We leave it somewhere sensible and out of the sun, and we photograph where we left it and text that to you. We will not leave flowers on a doorstep in August without saying so first — they will be dead by six.

Can I just have something for under thirty dollars?

Yes, and please do. A bunch of one thing in paper at $28 is genuinely lovely and it is what most of us take home ourselves. There is no minimum in the shop at all — people buy a single stem here most days.

Do you do funerals?

Yes, and for that one please ring rather than order online. There are questions worth asking that a form cannot ask, and there is no version of a drop-down menu that belongs in that week of somebody's life.

Are you on any of the big flower websites?

No, and we will not be. They take between a quarter and a third of what you pay and hand the rest to whoever is nearest with instructions to make it work. See the section above — it is the single thing we feel strongest about.

Order

Ring the shop, or tell us here

Ringing is genuinely faster and you will get better flowers out of it, because we will ask you two or three questions that this form cannot. But if it is late or you would rather not talk, this reaches the bench and we come back the same morning.

Somebody at the bench picks up(313) 555-0106 Answered the same morninghello@marchmontflowers.example

Come in and just look11 Bridge Street, Netherby

Closed Sunday and MondayTue–Fri 9–5 · Sat 9–3

Tell us what you need

Six fields, and somebody comes back the same morning.