Nature’s Gifts — Home-Grown Botanical Décor & Fragrance from Somerset’s Seasons
Botanical Home Décor, Grown & Gathered in Somerset
Welcome to JustForageThen, a small botanical studio in Somerset creating natural home décor and fragrance inspired by the changing British seasons.
My work begins long before a finished piece reaches your home.
Throughout the year I grow, gather, harvest and dry many of the flowers, herbs, foliage, fruits, seed heads and other botanicals that eventually become part of my collections. Much is grown here using organic and natural growing practices, without synthetic pesticides or unnecessary chemicals, while other materials are responsibly gathered from the Somerset countryside or carefully sourced when they cannot be grown locally.
The result is a constantly changing library of natural materials that reflects the season in which they were grown and gathered.
Spring brings the first fresh foliage and flowers. Summer is filled with roses, peonies, lavender, herbs and an abundance of petals. As autumn arrives, the palette deepens into fruits, berries, seed heads, nuts and richly coloured foliage, before winter brings evergreens, pine cones and woodland materials.
Each is gathered at the right moment, carefully prepared and slowly dried before being selected for a future design.
Pot Pourri, Reimagined
At the heart of JustForageThen is a desire to reimagine pot pourri as a statement piece for the home.
Forget the small bowls of heavily fragranced, artificially coloured petals traditionally associated with pot pourri.
My collections are abundant, tactile and deliberately beautiful — compositions of whole flower heads, petals, foliage, seed pods, fruits, herbs, pine cones and other botanicals chosen for their colour, form and texture as much as their fragrance.
They are designed to sit confidently within an interior: filling a favourite bowl, becoming a centrepiece on a table or console, or simply bringing something natural and unexpected into a room.
Pot pourri to be seen, not hidden away.
Because I work with real botanicals rather than mass-produced decorative components, every collection is naturally individual. Flowers vary, seasons change and no two handfuls will ever be precisely the same.
That is part of their beauty.
From Growing to Finished Piece
There is an extraordinary amount of work behind something that can appear beautifully simple.
Flowers are grown and tended for months before being cut. Botanicals are harvested, sorted and prepared individually. Citrus and fruits are sliced and slowly dried. Foliage is gathered in volume. Seed heads, nuts, berries, pine cones and woodland finds are collected as the seasons change.
Some materials take hours to prepare; others take days or weeks to dry.
I deliberately work this way because it allows me to create with botanicals whose provenance I know and to retain the wonderful imperfections, colours and textures that make natural materials so distinctive.
Where fragrance is added, carefully selected essential and fragrance oils are used to complement the botanicals rather than disguise them. Artificial colours and unnecessary additives have no place in the process.
Designed by the Seasons
JustForageThen isn’t built around producing identical collections throughout the year.
Instead, the seasons influence what I make.
A flush of roses might inspire a new colour palette. An abundance of apples becomes part of an autumn collection. Deep burgundy flowers gathered in summer may eventually sit alongside winter foliage and pine cones months later.
It means many pieces are naturally limited and collections evolve throughout the year.
Alongside my signature pot pourri you’ll find dried botanical décor, natural simmer blends, seasonal decorations, dried flowers and petals, botanical gifts and occasional small-batch creations inspired by whatever is growing or being gathered at the time.
I also welcome bespoke commissions, whether you’re looking for a particular colour palette, a botanical arrangement for your home, wedding or event pieces, or something created especially as a gift.
Naturally Individual
Natural materials aren’t uniform — and I don’t want them to be.
A rose grown outdoors in Somerset will not look identical to the next. Leaves curl as they dry. Petals deepen or soften in colour. Seed heads twist into unexpected shapes. Fruit slices vary in pattern and tone.
Rather than correcting those differences, I design around them.
It is a slower and less predictable way of creating, but it produces something very different from mass-manufactured home décor.
Something with a season, a provenance and a story behind it.
Thank you for supporting JustForageThen and the many hours of growing, gathering, drying and making behind every collection.
Grown • Gathered • Dried • Designed
in Somerset
Pot pourri, reimagined.
Naturally beautiful. Designed to last.