A garden in Somerset, a quill that keeps moving.
Flora & Quill grew from the simple belief that gardens deserve to be written about properly — not as instruction manuals, but as living, breathing companions.
Small-batch seeds harvested by hand, seasonal writing that follows the garden's own rhythm, and the occasional love letter to a pear tree. Nothing here is in a hurry.
The Seeds
Small batches, hand-harvested, grown without chemicals in a Somerset garden. Each variety comes with a story and everything I know about it.
The Writing
Seasonal essays, plant chronicles, garden observations. Slow, attentive writing that notices what most miss.
The Calendar
A year of growing, plant by plant, month by month — weaving together what to grow and why it matters.
Garden Journal
All →A Small Orchard. Well, Actually — Two Pear Trees and a Fig.
This morning, as on every morning
I have a small orchard. Well, actually, it's two pear trees and a fig tree, gifted to me by a neighbour — but an orchard it is, and I claim the word without apology.
Seasonal NotesThe Medlar Waits for Nobody
Looking ahead to autumn
The medlar knows something the other trees don't: that patience has its own flavour, and it is worth waiting for.
May · Runner BeansEverything Needs Attention at Once
The garden in May
The raspberries are climbing. The strawberries sprawling with characteristic ambition. The gooseberries quietly swelling.
Plant ChronicleThe Bay Tree & What Marie Knew
Early spring
It was Marie who identified it. Standing in the garden, quite certain, the way she always is about plants.
Seeds from the Garden
All →Hand-harvested in Wells, Somerset. Grown without chemicals. Each seed comes with everything I know about it.
Nothing in the garden
truly ends at flowering.
At Flora & Quill, we believe a plant's life does not end at flowering. Many of the plants grown here are chosen not only for their beauty in the garden, but for the lives they continue to live afterwards — in seed, in tea, in tincture, in natural dye, in seasonal making, and in the quiet rituals of everyday life.
We encourage gardeners to save seed where possible, allowing plants to return year after year and gradually become part of the character of a garden. Some flowers may be dried for arrangements, others for herbal use or natural dye colour.
A garden can feed more than one part of a life. The same flower may offer nectar to pollinators, beauty to the eye, seed for future sowing, petals for dye, or fragrance for tea. We are interested in these slower, older relationships with plants — not simply growing them, but living alongside them attentively and well.
Nigella · Love-in-a-Mist
Nigella's life continues well beyond its ethereal blue flowers. The papery, inflated seed pods are beautiful in dried arrangements and winter posies. In some Mediterranean traditions the seeds have been used as a gentle carminative — scattered on bread like a milder cousin of black cumin. The flowers are generous to bees throughout their season. Allow the pods to fully ripen on the plant and the seeds will scatter themselves, returning to you every year with quiet fidelity.
Cosmos Purity
Cosmos has been used since pre-Columbian times as a source of natural dye — the flowers yield soft yellows and oranges when simmered with mordanted wool. The white Purity variety offers a quieter palette. The petals are edible and can be scattered in salads or used to decorate a cake. As a cut flower it is long-lasting and generous. Dry the blooms in a well-ventilated room away from sunlight and they will hold their shape beautifully for winter arrangements.
Garden Poppy
Poppies have one of the longest histories of useful life beyond flowering of any garden plant — cultivated for food, medicine and ritual since at least 3000 BC. The architectural seed pods are among the most beautiful in any dried arrangement. If your poppy turns out to be Papaver somniferum, the seeds are edible and delicious — used in bread, pastry and salad dressings across Central Europe and South Asia. All poppies are deeply attractive to bees.
Gladiolus
Gladiolus is an exceptional cut flower — tall, stately, long-lasting in the vase. The petals are edible and can be used to decorate cakes and desserts, or floated in a summer punch bowl. Growing from seed rather than corms is a slower pleasure, but one that deepens your relationship with the plant; you'll know exactly where it came from and how it was raised.
Giant Dill
Dill is perhaps the most quietly useful plant in this collection. The leaves add distinctive flavour to salads, fish, soups, and potato dishes. The seeds — pungent and caraway-like — are wonderful in bread, cheese, and the brine of homemade pickles. The plant has been used for centuries as a digestive herb. The tall, umbellifer flowers are irresistible to hoverflies and beneficial insects.
Black-eyed Susan
Cheerful and sun-loving, Black-eyed Susan is a generous long-season bloomer that attracts butterflies and bees from midsummer through to the first frosts. The cut flowers are long-lasting and bright in any arrangement. Allow the seed heads to remain through winter — they are architectural in their own right, and provide food for small birds.
Verbena bonariensis
Possibly the finest butterfly plant in the Somerset garden — from late spring until first frost its tall, airy stems carry nectar-rich purple flowers that butterflies cannot resist. In herbal tradition, verbena has been used as a calming tea. The dried stems hold their structure beautifully in winter arrangements. It self-seeds with generosity, and once you have it in a garden, it tends to stay.
Sweet Peas — Garden Mix
Sweet peas are grown almost entirely for fragrance and beauty — and both are reason enough. Cut them regularly and they will flower all the more freely. Saving your own seed year after year means the strain gradually adapts to your soil and conditions, becoming more yours with each season. But the truest use of a sweet pea is simply to pick it and bring it indoors — and let the scent do what it has always done.
A small orchard —
well, actually.
Two pear trees and a fig tree gifted by a neighbour. An orchard it is, and I claim the word without apology.
"Each morning I visit my trees and wish them good morning. I touch their leaves the way a mother might gently nurture a small child. And most mornings, if I'm honest, I lean in and kiss them."
The fig is more self-possessed somehow. More assured of its own survival. The pears feel younger, needier, more responsive to encouragement.
- 🍐Pear trees· two, both in fruit
- 🍏Apple trees· two, steady and reliable
- 🌿Fig· gifted, self-possessed
- 🍂Medlar· patient, peculiar, perfect
- 🫐Gooseberries· swelling quietly
- 🍓Strawberries· sprawling with ambition
- 🌱Raspberries· climbing
Wells, Somerset · Growing season 2026
Planting seeds for justice — and for joy.
Flora & Quill is the garden side of Sharon Brien — writer, racial justice educator, and deeply committed gardener based in Wells, Somerset.
The garden and the writing have always belonged together: both require patience, attention, and a willingness to tend things that take their own time to come good. The medlar is already looking pleased with itself.
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