Ellie runs Wilt Studio and grows her own flowers on a small plot on the North Herts - Cambridgeshire border. She describes herself as a soil-centric flower farmer and floral designer. Her installation for Flowers on the Edge, titled ‘We honour you, soil - a sum of its parts’, was positioned at the entrance to the exhibition.

“The intention was to bring the focus to the soil - the medium that allows us to grow the flowers we work with. The uncelebrated element of our business.”

In the lead-up to the show, Ellie researched what soil actually is; its makeup, its role in the ecosystem and how cultures across time have honoured what matters. She translated the building blocks of healthy soil into a series of ceremonial vessels:

• A vase made from beeswax and flowers

• A vessel from a deer rib cage and wool, representing animal decay

• A bowl made from horse manure

• Decaying plant matter

• A small bowl hand-chiselled from wood, holding water

• A glass still full of live worms and micro-organisms

Together, they read like a ritual. A reminder that every flower in the exhibition, every installation, every stem, was only possible because of what’s happening beneath the surface. And everything above will one day return to it. Ellie’s floristry celebrates that cycle. A chain of interdependence: plants, place, decomposition, growth:

“Soil really is the most uncelebrated and vitally important element that makes up our world… and it just seems so under the radar. So, let’s celebrate it.”