People of the Flower Market A Year at New Covent Garden Flower Market

This wonderful photographic record of the last year at the site of the New Covent Garden Flower Market, occupied since the 1960s before it moved to its new, more modern premises, captures the essence and heart of what makes a market: its amazing product—the exuberant blooms and foliage—along with the characters that bring it life as they work there or visit it, as sellers, buyers, and porters meet, trade, hustle, bustle, and share a joke. Simon Lycett bought flowers for his floristry business from this Market for more than 30 years, and it is an essential, and much loved, part of his daily life. The market traders have become like family. Each day there, throughout the year, is different, as the ever-changing seasonal flowers and foliage of spring, summer, then Fall, and finally Christmas arrive in the Market hall.

Simon Lycett has been a florist for over three decades, during which time he has created floral displays for every imaginable occasion, including several royal weddings and many A-list celebrity birthdays. Simon will be hosting a new 8-part floristry competition series, Full Bloom, for TV channel HBO Max, to be broadcast in Fall 2020. The series will feature ten of America’s budding florists vying to be crowned America’s best. Michelle Garrett is an award-winning photographer who specialises in gardens, plants, food and travel. She has photographed the gardens of Villandry and Heligan. Her work has been included in many prestigious books and magazines.