The Farewell Flowers Directory is a UK, not-for-profit organisation that promotes personalised funeral tributes and aims to banish plastic floral foam and single-use plastic from funeral floristry. The directory is an online listing service, connecting people to independent florists who can offer local, personal and plastic-free funeral flowers. The organisation was founded in May 2024 by florists and flower farmers Gill Hodgson MBE and Carole Patilla, and has over 190 member florists across the UK.
For the 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the Farewell Flowers Directory display will be featuring exclusively British-grown flowers, foliage and a willow coffin. Entirely free of plastic and harmful plastic floral foam, the installation aims to demonstrate that beauty does not need to be sacrificed or sustainability. B exhibiting at the show, the not-for-profit hopes to bring funeral floristry out of the shadows and open conversations about what funeral flowers and funerals can be.
“Funeral flowers don’t have to look funereal, they can be whatever you want them to be. We want to let people know that they have a choice. You can choose to celebrate and reflect a life with fresh, seasonal materials that are natural, beautiful and resonant with meaning. And you can choose for your tributes to tread lightly on the planet,” said Gill Hodgson MBE, Co-founder of The Farewell Flowers Directory.
The centrepiece of the installation will be an arrangement of vibrant, wildly natural seasonal garden flowers that will burst out of the open willow coffin and cascade across the tranquil graveyard scene. Watching on will be the wirework forms of a man and his dog by artist, Susan Nichols. Nestled nearby in the grass by the gravestones will be personal funeral flower tributes including walking boots filled with garden-style flowers, a wreath of living plants, a violin holding flowers and a casket spray arrangement designed to be divided and shared with family and friends.
Mathew Crawley, Chief Executive of the ICCM said: “The Farewell Flowers Directory champions a simple but transformative idea: funeral flowers can be personal, beautiful, and environmentally responsible. This exhibit will be more than just a showcase of flowers – it’s a statement that grief, remembrance and sustainability can exist together in harmony.”
The RHS Chelsea installation is sponsored by the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management (ICCM), Green Funeral Flowers Online Course by Tuckshop Flowers, New Covent Garden Flower Market and Workplace Bereavement.
Floral team
Staging the RHS Chelsea exhibit will be four members of The Farewell Flowers Directory: Gill Hodgson MBE of Fieldhouse Flowers in Yorkshire, Carole Patilla of Tuckshop Flowers in Birmingham, Georgie Newbery of Common Farm Flowers in Somerset and Nicola Hill of Gentle Blooms in Warwickshire. During Chelsea week, they will be joined at the show by funeral florists listed on the Directory from around the UK.
The flowers and foliage on display have come from artisan cut flower growers across the country. Those closest to the show have been grown by Godalming Flowers, Surrey.
Carole Patilla, Co-founder added: “Funeral flowers can be gentle, bold, reserved or naturally, beautifully wild. They might feature a pair of flower-filled walking boots, a wreath of vegetables to celebrate a keen grower, flowers from your garden or a collection of posies that can be shared after the service. We want to create arrangements that capture a life, a time and a place as sustainable as possible. People often tell us how the beauty of the flowers helps to get people talking at a funeral. They provide a point of beauty to focus on and makes the experience of funerals that little bit easier.”
