Cornish florist Mark Nicholas’ first choice of career was horticulture, however, as a life-long sufferer of migraines the fluorescent lights and reflective glass of the greenhouses triggered attacks, so it was suggested that he tried floristry instead. This led to a certain amount of teasing from his school friends, about him doing ‘a lady’s job.’
‘Even my career teacher said the same thing. I don’t think you’d be allowed to say that now!’ comments Mark, ‘but I stuck to it, enjoyed it, and opened my first shop when I was just eighteen. I wanted to do it properly, so while running the shop I continued studying, achieving the highest qualification in floristry in the UK, the National Diploma.’
Mark’s wife Rebecca is also a qualified florist and between them they run a successful independent business which prides itself on supporting similar local enterprises.
Being in Cornwall brings its own challenges, especially in the summer. ‘When the holiday season starts, we have to factor in the tourist traffic when we do deliveries as it can slow us down. But on the other hand, we have a lot of locally grown flowers here so we try and buy Cornish as much as we can.’
The condition of their flowers and foliage is important to Mark and his team at Flowertime, ‘We want to always send top quality flowers to our customers, after all, we want to be the best, so we need to make sure that we only send out the best.’
That ethos also applies to funeral work, which is a particular favourite of Marks. ‘Funeral flowers are very important; they are the last nice thing someone can do to express how they feel. To have the skill to create a design which conveys those feelings is a great privilege.’
