The Flower Market Year is twelve months in the life of Simon Lycett as he goes about his daily business at the world-renowned New Covent Garden Flower Market before it moved to its new venue in 2018. With beautiful, specially commissioned colour photographs of this historic market through the seasons, the book also has practical step-by-step descriptions of floral decoration for each month, all virtually free of flower foam and without using specialist equipment, so you too can make your own Simon Lycett inspired arrangement. The book brings to life the journey of the floral arrangement from trader to arranger.

Aware that the ‘old’ New Covent Garden Market, a building and institution Simon had come to know and love, was to be demolished, Simon decided to document this historic change. The incredibly talented Michelle Garrett agreed to be the photographer. Over the calendar year, Michelle spent a couple of days a month photographing the Market, sometimes just the flowers, often Simon and what he was buying, but also capturing a real sense of the place, with its salesmen and women, customers and porters, buyers and suppliers. What was being recorded was the gentle but unstoppable evolution as the seasons progressed month by month, so the flowers Simon was buying and using became an actual calendar of the floral year. Captured in The Flower Market Year is what Simon saw and bought, what inspired him and how he used it to create floral decorations which truly were seasonal. Following Simon’s step-by-step instructions, Simon shows how to create beautiful arrangements from the petalled perfection of a Valentine heart of roses, to adorable Easter egg vases and simple yet elegant Christmas wreaths. This is the perfect blend of entertaining interesting anecdotes, historical fact, constructive advice and a practical guide with gorgeously glossy photographs.

New Covent Garden Market plays an integral part in Simon’s life as a florist and has done for the last 25 years. It moved to the Nine Elms site in Vauxhall in November 1974, where it became known as the New Covent Garden Flower Market. Previously it occupied the Covent Garden site since 1670 when King Charles granted the Earl of Bedford a private charter to hold a market there every day except Sunday and Christmas Day. Now after more than 40 years at the site, it has moved further down Nine Elms Lane to a new purpose build site ready to face the challenges of a 21st century flower trading market.

Simon Lycett’s TV career started with the flowers for ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’; he has appeared countless times on ‘The Alan Titchmarsh Show’ and alongside Mary Berry in her BBC1 series ‘Classic Mary Berry’. Simon has travelled the world in order to co-present a BBC2 documentary ‘The World’s Biggest Flower Market’ and he is filmed annually by the BBC from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Simon is a member of the RHS House Plants & Cut Flowers Advisory Group which helps and advises the RHS and impacts its overall activities.  Simon is a passionate devotee of the New Covent Garden Flower Market and helps to raise the profile of British floristry and seasonal flowers. Simon was voted the Florist of the Year by New Covent Garden Flower Market in their inaugural awards. Simon had the honour of being awarded Honorary Fellowship status from the Institute of Professional Florists.

Michelle Garrett is an Australian award-winning professional photographer who is interested in all aspects of observing and capturing ‘a moment in time’.  Her love of photography has enabled her to travel extensively, work with people and their passions and have her features published in prestigious magazines and books in the UK and internationally. She specializes in garden, flower and close-up, lifestyle, food, travel, people and street photography.