Q&A thursday: belinda norrington of wild acre

how/why you got into the flowers

moving to a barn that had half an acre of field, untouched by trowel or spade, and wanting to create a beautiful garden is what got me into flowers. piet oudolf was, and probably still is my biggest design influence, the use of grasses and natural looking drifts of colour really suits the rural situation of my patch. once the garden got going i wanted to learn how to grow gorgeous flowers to fill the new garden with colour and scent and also to cut them for our house and to give away. i grew so many that i started selling some of them.

on your current playlist

fleetwood mac and a bit of elvis costello (oliver's army). weird combo!

savoury or sweet?

carbs - good bread, hot-cross buns, chocolate cake are hard to resist. have just discovered a clotted cream and blackcurrant ice-cream that is bliss! so i guess sweet. but then a zingy thai beef salad with lots of chilli and lime and coriander has just popped into my head, so i suppose it depends on my mood.

best ever flower (for this week at least)

i have a weakness for really pure looking flowers, so white scabious (caucasica, 'miss wilmott's ghost) and the lovely japanese anemone 'honore joubert'. both float and bob about so elegantly over long wiry stems just to make the florist's joy complete!

tipple?

very cold prosecco in the summer and whisky mac in the winter.

your most unappealing habit

saying bugger when i'm cross. oh and offering to share a pudding and then eating it all myself, my husband has refused to ever share another one with me!

couldn't live without

rose tea by twinings. well i could live, obvs, but the morning would be a struggle.

favourite website(s)

apart from l and bloom you mean, fawn, fawn (?!!) okay then for more flowers - floret, sarah raven. for housey stuff - re, labour and wait, radiance. for handmade lovely - etsy and bigcartel. for jewellery - junkaholique, the goldensmith, satomi kawakita. oh, and pinterest is sucking me in! others for food, clothes, art, photography...um, what DID we do before the internet?!

what makes your heart sing

seeing my kids all get on together, big open rural views, the sea especially the far side of blakeney point - an island off the north norfolk coast. my flowerbeds weed free, breakfast in bed, a lime tree in blossom, really original and well designed jewellery.

tell me a secret

when i try on a new outfit, i have to stand in front of a mirror and sing and wiggle and click my fingers before i can tell if it looks nice. oh dear, so tragic but i bet i still do it when i am 80!

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wild acre is in hertfordshire. belinda's lovely blog lives here.