The story behind us

Samuel Caldwell started Dune Wildflower in the autumn of 2014 out of a converted garden shed at the edge of a coastal property he was renting at the time. He had spent the previous six years working as a landscaper, mostly on large residential gardens, and had grown increasingly interested in the cutting side of it: which stems held, which wilted by noon, which dried into something worth keeping. The shed had no heat and one extension cord running from the main house. The first winter, he sold bundles at a Saturday farmers market and made enough to buy a secondhand cooler.

The business moved into its current studio space in the spring of 2018, a converted outbuilding behind a row of shops about two miles from the coast. The space is not large, around 400 square feet of working room, but it has a proper walk-in cooler now, a long wooden workbench Samuel built himself from reclaimed timber, and enough wall space to hang the drying bundles that are always in rotation. That same year he started working with two small flower farms in the region, buying direct rather than going entirely through the wholesale market. The relationship with those growers changed the quality of what he could offer, and it changed the pace of the work.

Today Dune Wildflower does subscriptions, event work, and made-to-order arrangements. Samuel still cuts and builds everything himself, with occasional help from one part-time assistant during the busy spring and summer months. The dried work has grown into roughly a third of the output, partly because customers kept asking for it and partly because Samuel finds it genuinely interesting as a form. The studio is open for pickups Tuesday through Saturday. Walk-ins are welcome when the sign is out, which is most mornings.