Lisa goes bananas

IT was an ordinary day at The Wild Bunch, Lisa Mitchinson’s flower shop in the heart of Sunderland, when an unusual phone call came. Lisa was asked to arrive at the city’s harbour with her passport for a commission, but was not told on what, or for whom, she would be working.

She was astounded when she was met with the superyacht the Leander, which the Queen used for a tour to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

Lisa’s job was to decorate it – and it was all to be kept top secret.

“It was in Sunderland and the Queen was on it and nobody knew,” she says. “When we went to deliver the flowers, Special Branch were there. A guy who was tying up the boat said to me ‘I never thought I would see flowers of that calibre in this part of the world’.”

To Lisa, providing flowers for Royals and celebrities is just part of what she does, yet she describes decorating the yacht as the pinnacle of her career. She has catered for the Queen four times on Her Majesty’s visits to Sunderland, and the list of celebrities who have come to her for weddings and other occasions is staggering, including the Beckhams, the pop star Pink and former Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given.

It all seems unlikely for a little shop in a city which Lisa complains has a dearth of private enterprise, yet she has built it up from scratch with just self-belief and the will to succeed.

She explains how it all began.

“My father died in 1995 when he was only 59 and it changed me for ever. Opening a florists was a dream, but I decided to make it a reality because I thought what was I waiting for? I had a really good job, a car, a house and horses, and everybody thought I was barking mad, including my own family.”

Lisa enrolled on a floristry course at Houghall College, in Durham, completing the four-year training in just a year. She intended to join an established business before starting her own, but soon became disillusioned.

“I was so disappointed with what was out there that I only worked in the industry for about eight weeks,” she says. “I was so uninspired and I didn’t want the bubble to burst, so I sold my house and everything I had to set up my own business in November 1996. I lived with my mother – she kept me – and I set my business up.” When Lisa first acquired the shop, it was in such a state of disrepair that the landlord let her have it rent-free for six months so she could renovate it.

Despite this, it was an overnight success, capitalising on being unique in what it did.

“The way we put the product together is very different,”

says Lisa, who lives in Sunderland. “I assimilate floristry with food and restaurants.

There’s nothing unique about food – it’s what you do with it.”

Lisa spends hours each day ordering stock, which comes exclusively from Holland. She has four main suppliers, who are in tune with what she likes, and she pays a share in the cost of shipping to North Shields and transportation to the shop.

On any given day, The Wild Bunch has about 100 types of flowers and a dozen types of foliage, all of which arrives within 24 hours of being bought in an online auction. The process of sourcing is crucial.

“We go for the more unusual products so we have to have a really intimate knowledge of what is available in Holland,” says Lisa. “My relationship with my suppliers is hugely important to the successful running of my business. I buy things like bananas on stems and Elephant’s Foot. You need to know that something is there and be brave enough to put it in a bouquet and know that people will like it.”

About 90 per cent of The Wild Bunch’s customers are regular and the vast majority allow Lisa and her team a free rein when putting together arrangements. They take their job seriously and understand the weight of responsibility that often comes with it.

“There’s a huge amount of sentiment attached to what we do,” says Lisa. “There’s a reason for everything we do and we try to touch on that. Funeral work can’t be late and it can’t be wrong and, for a wedding, it’s got to be perfect. It’s got to be on time and it’s got to be right, and that’s what we do.”

Lisa takes pride in the fact that her arrangements are distinctive, and are often recognised as coming from The Wild Bunch. There is always something unusual – like a strange-shaped flower or a quirky-looking piece of foliage – and Lisa’s bouquets are unstructured and natural-looking: a kind of floral shabby chic. She takes her inspiration from trends in Hello magazine and what is happening in interiors and translates the themes through flowers.

“I do try my utmost to keep our product interesting and everyone interested in what we are doing,” she says. “We are always looking at ways of doing it better.”

This is never more so than for weddings – for many, the single most important flower purchase of their lives. The current trend is for a soft, vintage look, which reflects a less formal celebration.

“For the past three summers it has been all creams, pinks and lilacs, and that is continuing this year,” says Lisa. “We use a lot of herbs from Italy and lots of very garden-like flowers. Arrangements are unstructured.”

Plans for the future include The Wild Bunch going on tour, showcasing its work in a vintage caravan which Lisa plans to decorate pink and silver.

She has also been asked to re-design part of the floral scheme at Wynyard Hall, which is about to undergo a £4m transformation to position itself as a tourist attraction.

A true businesswoman, Lisa understands the need to provide what the consumer demands – but that doesn’t rule out the scope for creativity. “I love what I do. I love nature and flowers and plants and I love ordering them – every day is like Christmas.

I will stick my neck out and say that everyone who works here is an artist and everything we send out is a piece of art.”