Ella Tutton has transformed a neglected walled kitchen garden at Wimborne St Giles into a thriving flower farm, growing for florists, weddings – and anyone who wants to fill a bucket with stunning British blooms

When I first meet Ella Tutton, she is up to her elbows in flowers, secateurs in hand. At her feet, her dog Pip is waiting hopefully for her to throw his tennis ball. There are bees humming everywhere, butterflies floating between blooms and, on a nearby verbena, the fizz of a hummingbird hawk-moth collecting nectar. It is an almost absurdly idyllic scene.
However, dig deeper, and you uncover years of determination, hard work and one woman’s dream. The scene before me is very different from the one that faced Ella when she took over this neglected garden in February 2023.

Back then, the garden was covered in brambles, bindweed and nettles. Ella slowly cleared it and began planting, while coping with wet winters, summer droughts and storms – one of which even destroyed her first garden shelter.
‘With this kind of job, there is always something that needs doing, whatever the weather,’ she says. ‘You instantly feel better and more alive for getting out in the fresh air and the elements.’
Her parents, Jane and Richard, have been right by her side, along with friends and volunteers who have helped too. But this is very much Ella’s project – and increasingly her livelihood.
It is easy to understand why she fell for the garden. The plot sits within the vast Shaftesbury Estate at Wimborne St Giles, whose history with the Ashley and Ashley-Cooper families stretches back more than 600 years. High walls of mellow red brick enclose the garden’s four sections.
Ella’s half-acre still carries traces of a bygone time: as she cleared the weeds, old paths and beds emerged.

A riot of perennials
For Ella, though, a passion for growing plants began long before she found this garden. As a child, she grew vegetables in her own plot in the family garden. She dreamt of working outside and being self-sufficient, but it wasn’t until after Covid, when she went to work at Gold Hill Organic Farm at Child Okeford, that the possibility of making a living from plants took hold.
After her employers at Gold Hill agreed she could grow flowers on a small piece of unused land, she began selling them in the farm shop. Then she heard about the neglected walled garden: the possibility of having her own flower farm began to take shape.
Now, the beds are a riot of annuals and perennials: dahlias, cosmos, snapdragons, larkspur and sweet williams jostle with achillea, geums and hollyhocks. Ella grows without chemicals, using no-dig methods, natural fertilisers and collected rainwater whenever she can. Some plants are deliberately left to set seed, while wildflowers and a wildlife pond reflect her approach of gardening with, rather than against, wildlife. Goldfinches pick through seed heads, and birds, newts, slow-worms and oil beetles are at home among the flower beds.

A British revival
Many of the flowers she grows go to florists through the South West England Flower Grower Collective, which brings small growers together through a central wholesale hub. Each week, Ella lists on the website what she expects to have available, florists can then order online, and the growers pick flowers to order. This is part of a wider revival in British flower growing, with small flower farms popping up across Dorset and beyond … mainly, it has to be said, run by women.
Some flowers, such as astrantia, are grown specifically for drying, extending the selling season beyond the months when fresh blooms are plentiful. Ella has also expanded what the farm offers to visitors on site, with pick-your-own sessions, workshops and floristry events, as well as DIY wedding flowers.

If a couple can tell her what they would like far enough ahead, Ella will even grow to match their desired colour scheme, and provide buckets of seasonal blooms they can arrange themselves.
But flowers aren’t the only thing Ella wants to grow here.
Eventually, she’d like the garden to become a place where people with mental and physical disabilities can spend time outdoors, get their hands in the soil as she has, learn new skills and find a sense of calm within the old brick walls.
‘I love the magical process of sowing a tiny seed and watching it grow, with my care, into a beautiful plant,’ Ella says. ‘It helps me feel I am doing something good, not just for myself, but also for the planet.’
ellasflowerfarm.co.uk
Ella’s Flower Farm
Butts Close, Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, BH21 5NB
[email protected]
Visits by appointment only