A family flower farm will this Christmas celebrate 20 years of posting festive bunches of daffodils from the Isles of Scilly to homes across the country.
Over the last two decades, millions of scented narcissi and perfumed pinks have been delivered to hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the British Isles – and even to a Royal Navy ship at sea.
It was in 1992 that Andrew and Hilary Julian took a huge financial gamble by investing in a national advertising campaign inviting potential customers to order boxes of traditional Scillonian flowers as Christmas gifts. It was a new and untested idea, but it captured the imagination of thousands of customers and helped to secure the future of the business.
Since that first Christmas, more than a million boxes of Scent From The Islands flowers have been posted out – enough to stretch from the Julians' Churchtown Farm on St Martin's to St Paul's Cathedral in London.
Christmas is Churchtown Farm's busiest time of year because the distinctively scented narcissi – which usually mark the onset of spring on the Cornish mainland – begin flowering as early as October in the milder climate of the islands. To cope with the large volume of orders that will be sent over the two-week festive season, Ben and Zoe Julian – the second generation of the family to run the company – have been getting ready since September.
"It hardly seems possible that our very first box of British-grown scented flowers was posted out 20 years ago," said Zoe. "We've got an amazing team of staff who have helped make our success possible. St Martin's might only be a tiny island but there are some very talented, hard-working individuals living here.
"We're also grateful to all our customers, many of whom have been ordering from us ever since those very first adverts."
Extra staff have been taken on to deal with the increased demand and this year packing operations have moved to St Mary's for the peak period.
"Product quality has always been our top priority," added Zoe. "It is a standard recognised by many local and national awards – not just celebrating the excellence of the product, but also the company's outstanding customer service and innovative business ideas."
