Verde Flower Co. is in the business of joyful, nature-friendly, chemical-free flowers.

This is Roisin. Flower farmer, florist, researcher and campaigner, living in the north east of England. Growing (literally), out of a somewhat crumbling 2.2 acre walled garden constructed in the 1760s, this space feels like the secret garden and Roisin is on a mission to grow beautiful flowers and transform the wider industry.

Roisin spent the last four years as the director of a national youth campaigning organisation - UK Youth for Nature, working with young people across the UK to campaign for the government to take action on nature loss. During that time, she also completed a Nuffield Farming Scholarship looking at the impact of climate change on the British cut flower industry, going on to become a trustee for the charity.

She is a Nature Friendly Farming Network champion, and can often be heard on BBC Farming Today, or Radio 1 talking all things climate change and farming. And more recently she has taken up a position on the Advisory Board for the LUND Trust, looking at how major donor funding can transform land use and restore nature here in the UK.

Roisin is unnervingly serious about not just growing and arranging beautiful flowers here in the UK, but also advocating for a better global floriculture sector.

She works as a consultant for Pesticide Action Network looking specifically at pesticide use in the international cut flower industry and its impacts on the environment and workers on the ground in places like Kenya and Columbia. She is also currently leading a research project with Coventry University on the subject of pesticides on imported flowers - more on this to come!