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Welcome To The Seedling
For as long as I can remember I have loved stories. I love reading, writing and sharing stories about living our best lives. I'm curious about life and style and I know you are too. 
The Seedling is a celebration of the seasons and permission to love each day and week as it passes despite the busy lives we all lead. The Seedling will live as an evergreen - forever growing on my website and will share ideas to inspire, create & nurture through interviews, features and reviews across lifestyle - from planning, planting and arranging life-enhancing flowers to travel, wellness, interiors, style, cooking and so much more. I will also share what is inspiring me each month -
from plants to podcasts, flowers to fashion. 
Each month we will focus on one flower in season - this month is Tulips! My love runs deep. 
Each month we will also highlight another tactile trend that inspires me and this month it's all about stripes - from deckchairs to napkins to cashmere sweaters, 
I've rarely met a stripe I didn't like! 
This month of May is all about how we live - a former fashion editor who now runs a horse ranch in Colorado; embracing the seasons after a decade living in the tropics; 5 mins with the brilliant Nigel Slater plus a delicious spring recipe; discovering the incredible world of bespoke botanical perfumer Ffern and their new Spring 22 launch with Skye Gyngell; some nurturing thoughts from yoga teacher and writer Nicole Croft; travel dreaming of Sri Lanka and lots more…
I hope you enjoy The Seedling as much as we enjoy putting it together.
Please do let me know what you love and what you want to see more of  studio@willowcrossley.com. 
 For now, let's embrace SPRING! My favourite time of year and don't we all deserve 
the promise of fresh new flowers, longer evenings and time together outdoors. 
With love, 
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TULIPS & STRIPES
a happy spring pairing.
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my wishlist for May
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reading - The Land Gardeners new book, Soil To Table
watching - The Staircase with Toni Colette & Colin Firth
listening -  Best Friend Therapy with Elizabeth Day & Emma Reed Turrell
planting - Ladybird Rose nasturtium seeds
taking - Leapfrog Immune - please use my discount code WILLOW15
giving - To My Save The Children for Ukraine appeal 
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Create: 5 mins with Nigel Slater 
“If this is to be my last meal, then I would probably be very, very fussy about it. It will be calm and contemplative, and I will not be hurried.
I would like to eat sushi please, with each piece prepared in front of me by a sushi master ” 
Nigel Slater, on his favourite tulips: I adore parrot tulips, the sort you see in Dutch still-life paintings. I particularly love them when they are coming to the end of their lives, when their heads are hanging low and their stems have twisted and curled and their petals are thin and faded, like antique silk. It is often the case that when we think of flowers as ‘going over’ that is when I think they are often at their most beautiful. 
Photo credit: Jenny Zarin
We chat with Nigel Slater about his last supper, entertaining hacks, travel plans, 3 desert island ingredients and much more…
A Recipe for a Spring Day from Nigel Slater
Spinach ricotta pancakes, soured cream
Serves 2
spinach leaves – 100g
eggs – 3
ricotta – 250g
plain flour 50g
Parmesan, finely grated – 2 tablespoons
butter, melted – 2 tablespoons
basil leaves – a handful
parsley leaves – a handful
a little more butter for cooking
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Wash the spinach leaves, and while they are still wet, put them into a large saucepan over a moderate heat. Cover tightly with a lid and let the leaves cook, in their own steam, for a minute or two. Turn the leaves over and continue cooking, covered for a further minute. Drain the leaves then squeeze the water from them with your hands and set aside. 
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Separate the eggs, putting the whites into a bowl large enough to beat them in. Stir the ricotta into the egg yolks, then add the flour, the finely grated Parmesan and the melted butter. Chop a small handful of basil and parsley, stir them in, then season with a little salt and set aside. Finely chop the spinach.
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Nurture: 'Springing To Attention'
Our well-being depends on us being able to pause for long enough to notice the life that is in front of us. To take a moment, be it to turn our faces to the late spring sunshine … ”
 
If ever there was a season that commands attention it is spring. Partly it is in its immense beauty. After the monochrome of winter, spring is a riot of technicolour. Whilst the other seasons can have a tendency to merge, the lines between them often blurred, the difference between winter and spring is more obvious, the landscapes impossible to confuse…
Words by Nicole Croft
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Inspire:  How we live - ‘Home on the ranch’
May and June are months of rebirth on the ranch, with running creeks from the snow melt, horses shedding their winter coats and wild bison babies being born… ”
 
Former magazine editor turned stars and stripes ranch manager Kate Matheson shares a glimpse of the romance of her Wild West life and her insider guide to Colorado…
Words by Susanne  Madsen. Image from @kateloveshorses @ranchlands
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Create: the creative director of Ffern on seasonal scents
In late spring the elder tree blooms. Umbels of delicate, cloud-like flowers, that speckle the hedgerows and perfume the lanes with…
 
SPRING 22, the new fragrance launch 
from Ffern
"Skye’s thoughts turned at once to two ingredients: elderflower, the floral embodiment of soft Maytime breezes; and green gooseberry for its sharp and bittersweet tang'", recalls Emily Cameron, creative director of cult seasonal small-batch fragrance house, Ffern,  of the first meeting about Spring 22, a collaboration with Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell, of Spring restaurant.. It's their most culinary fragrance yet…
PS. - Ffern are generously allowing 40 readers of The Seedling to skip the waiting list and instantly sign up to the ledger here.
Photo credit: Kendal Noctor
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Inspire:  Why my spring really is a thing
“You see, these three orphaned lambs wobbling about on bandy legs looking like they’re wearing knitted flared trousers with little black pointed clogs encapsulate everything I have missed about Spring, and Spring is wonderful. ” 
In much the same way as I yearned to escape the cloying heat and sultry same-sameness of Singapore, I’ve been desperate to shake off the bleak, muddy shackles of a British winter and welcome the tender promise of Spring. But Spring starts slowly, gently, teasingly with snowdrop swords piercing through the hard earth…
Words & image by Tula Goodwin
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Mad about May
 For the rest of this month, why not…
  1. Plant your nasturtiums
  2. Dress your summer tables with our pretty glass bud vases
  3. Visit the Wild & Cultivated exhibition at the Garden Museum  (until 19th June)
  4. Join us at our next workshop - A Celebration of Tulips on 18th of May
  5. Visit the Collagerie X The Conran Shop collaboration 
    (& book a free ticket to the event on 11th of May)
  6. Go to the newly refurbished Courtauld at Somerset House in London
  7. (and to Spring restaurant for lunch afterwards!)
  8. Take the family to Giffords Circus at Daylesford or Sudeley Castle
  9. Make Nigel Slater's 5 minute pasta recipe - from our interview 
  10. Build your immunity - take Leapfrog Remedies (and use our discount code)
  11. Skip the queue here for the new Spring 22 fragrance from Ffern 
  12. Order our Jubilee Flower Box (by May 19) in time to celebrate our wonderful Queen
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