The Morning Bucket
Dealer's choice — changes with the van
Whatever was best on the market floor at five this morning, wrapped in kraft and tied with jute. No two days the same; that's the point.
£45
In season nowFlorist & Studio · Notting Hill, London
Stems cut
this morning.
Yours by noon.
We buy at New Covent Garden five mornings a week and sell nothing older than a day. What's in the buckets is what's in season — nothing flown, nothing forced, nothing dyed.
Market run, 4.42amBought in person, never off a list
W2 – W11 by bicycleSame-day if ordered before 1pm
British-grown firstNine in ten summer stems are ours
No cold roomNothing sleeps in the shop overnight
- Cut 4.42 this morning
- Dahlia 'Café au Lait'
- Sweet pea 'Molly Rilstone'
- Garden rose 'Margaret Merril'
- Delphinium 'Faust'
- Scabiosa 'Fata Morgana'
- Ammi visnaga
- Alchemilla mollis
- The last ranunculus of the year
In the buckets today
Wednesday 2 JulyRestocked 7.40am. When a chip says a flower is leaving, believe the chip — the season doesn't negotiate.
Sweet Pea Armful
Lathyrus odoratus 'Molly Rilstone'
Thirty ruffled stems from a single grower in Sussex, scented enough to fill a stairwell. Cut long, arranged loose, gone by Friday.
£52
Peak · June–SeptCafé au Lait
Dahlia 'Café au Lait' — eight dinner-plate stems
The first of the year came off the van this morning, blooms the size of your open hand. From now until the first frost takes them.
£68
Just in · to first frostThe Bell Jar
Our namesake — roses under glass
A low dome of 'Margaret Merril' and 'Koko Loko' roses in a returnable footed bowl, delivered under a real glass cloche you keep.
£110
In season nowDelphinium, by the Armful
Delphinium elatum 'Faust' — five stems, a metre tall
Proper English delphinium in deep ink-violet, grown in Lincolnshire. Too tall for the van rack; we carry them flat, like ladders.
£38
Last weeks · gone by AugustPeony 'Sarah Bernhardt'
Paeonia lactiflora — resting until spring
The last crate sold out on the 24th of June. We won't buy the cold-store imports; the next peony you get from us will have been cut that week.
from £60 · in May
Returns early MayThe bench at №6 — photographed never, drawn instead
The Studio
A flower shop that keeps farmers' hours.
Cloche opened in 2019 when Esme Calloway left a Mayfair flower house that flew peonies from Chile in January and never said so. The rule here fits on the till receipt: if it wasn't cut this week, it isn't for sale.
Five mornings a week one of us is at New Covent Garden by half past four, buying stem by stem from growers we can name — sweet peas from Marden, dahlias from a two-acre plot outside Faversham, foliage cut on a hedgerow contract in the Chilterns. The van is back by seven; the buckets are dressed by ten.
There is no cold room. What doesn't sell by six goes to the Portobello Road nurses' station, and we start again in the dark.
4.42amthis morning's market alarm — it moves with the seasons
38 milesthe furthest any stem travelled to reach today's buckets
0 nightsa flower spends in cold storage before it reaches you
The almanac
What we stock and when, honestly. If a month is missing, the flower is resting — we won't fake it with imports, and we'll tell you what to have instead.
| Stem | Arrives | Gone by | While it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hellebore Helleborus | December | March | The year's first colour; hangs its head on purpose |
| Narcissi N. tazetta | December | March | Cornish, scented, ten stems for the price of a coffee |
| Ranunculus R. asiaticus | January | May | Buttoned tight, then blowsy — buy them closed |
| Tulips Tulipa | January | April | They keep growing in the vase; let them lean |
| Peony Paeonia lactiflora | Early May | Late June | Six weeks, no extensions, worth the wait |
| Garden rose Rosa | May | September | Scent first, vase life second — the right order |
| Sweet pea Lathyrus odoratus | June | September | Three good days; spend them somewhere you sit |
| Delphinium D. elatum | June | August | A metre of ink-violet; needs a floor vase and a view |
| Dahlia D. pinnata | July | First frost | Arrived this week — from here the year only gets louder |
| Anemone A. coronaria | October | April | Black-eyed and dramatic; the winter's best argument |
In the buckets this week
Weekly stems · Standing orders
A bucket at your door,
every Thursday.
Delivered by bicycle across W2–W11 between seven and nine in the morning, before the kettle's cold. Pause it, skip a week, or send it to someone else's door — one message, no forms.
The Pail
£28 / week
Fifteen-odd stems of one variety — whatever is proudest that morning — wrapped in kraft. You do the arranging; that's the fun.
The Armful
£48 / week
Three varieties, conditioned and stripped, arranged loose so it falls into any vase you own. The most-kept order since 2021.
The Standing Order
£85 / week
A finished arrangement in a returnable stoneware vessel. We swap the whole thing each Thursday and take last week's away.
Visit the shop
Down the mews, follow the buckets.
6 Ledbury Mews North
Notting Hill, London W11 2AF
Ring the shop — 020 7229 0448
Write to us — shop@cloche.flowers
Ordering for a wedding or a wake? Ask for Esme directly.
- Tuesday – Friday
- 8.00 – 18.00
- Saturday
- 8.00 – 16.00 · buckets half price after three
- Sunday
- Closed — flowers rest too
- Monday
- Market & farm day — shop closed
If the door's open before eight, come in anyway — the first coffee is usually going and the best stems haven't been picked over.