When love blooms

Clarey Wrightson comes to the door of her large family home wearing a floral dress, plimsolls and practical parka. In her coat pocket is a pair of scissors, implements she?s rarely seen without since she and husband Barnaby started Manor Garden, their cut flowers business.

The couple sow and grow a wide range of flowers, foliage, and scented herbs for sale to florists and for wedding bouquets, and they are the perfect double act. Barney grows them, Clarey picks them and makes them into bouquets. "He makes everything look beautiful, then I come along with my scissors," she laughs.The couple both come from green-fingered stock, and they're not afraid of hard work. They worked down South - Barney in the film business, Crathorne-born Clarey as a teacher - until the lure of the North proved too great and brought them home again.They live in a run-down house on the edge of Neasham estate, which is owned by Barney's parents, Sir Mark and Lady Wrightson, and when they're not out gardening, they're stripping paint and ripping off wallpaper as they attempt to turn their period-feature filled pile into a liveable home for themselves, their five-year-old twins and three-year-old daughter.

So far, they have transformed two rooms into a large and welcoming kitchen – "We quite quickly realised when we moved in that the house would be a beast to heat and decided to make this area cosy," says Clarey – and are doing up a loo at the opposite end of the house. "It seems a bit random to do the furthest away loo, but it all makes sense," says Clarey, as she opens the adjacent door to reveal the steps down to her studio/workroom.

The former garage is now an atmospheric space full of hanging dried flowers, vases and jars ready to house cut flowers. The style is very shabby chic, with patches of faded old paint and posters on the walls. It's also pretty cold, and that's how it will stay. "The flowers like it like that," says Clarey.

As for the rest of the house, it will have to wait for when the couple have more time on their hands, and for a substantial amount of money to be gathered together to replace the dilapidated roof. "There's no point doing much until we stop all the leaks," says Clarey. "The rest of the house is a real project, but all features are there so the aim is to restore it sympathetically and make it work for us as a family."

Outside, the focus is firmly on the business. It's year three of Manor Garden and behind the house is the original cutting garden, formerly a veg patch, which has been extended and rabbit-proofed.

Barney, who was working for a big gardening firm in Oxford when the couple first married, is the brains behind the growing operation. Chemicals are banned from Manor Garden and although it is not certified organic, the only plant that has been subjected to anything toxic has been the rampant bindweed.

The growing game, chemical or organic, is rarely without incident, though. "We had to dig up and burn a whole patch of diseased tulips because the soil never got cold enough last winter to kill off the bugs," says Barney. "It happened all over the UK."

What the Wrightsons grow is subject to fashion and climate: there is no point in planting things that won't appreciate the vagaries of the North-East weather. "Plants absolutely go in and out of fashion and we have to keep on top of the trends," says Barney. "Like this one behind us. We've never grown this one before," says Clarey, pointing to a plant known as Malope trifida. The couple keep an eye out for trends on Pinterest and Instagram, through networks, chatrooms and blogs. "It's all about testing this and that," says Clarey. "Everyone wants Icelandic poppies at the moment but they don't last long so we are just trying them to see how it works. We grow things we love as well, our favourites."

The couple market their flowers fairly locally to places like Hutton Flowers in Northallerton and Darling & Green wedding florists of Crathorne and Castleton. "Certain things, we know, they always love – tulips, delphiniums, sweet peas – and we try to convince them to buy other stuff," says Clarey. "Wedding florists will come and look and choose more unusual things for bridal bouquets." Then there are the weddings for which Clarey will do everything – the bouquets, the church, the venue – or pick-your-own ones for DIY brides. "We charge by the bucket," says Clarey.

Soon, there will be bucket-loads more blooms. The Wrightsons have rented a walled garden from a farmer on the family estate and Barney has been hard at work preparing soil and planting it up. "It had a bull living in it for years, so it was just grass," he says.

The garden would once have been full of gardeners toiling over well-stocked vegetable plots to feed the incumbents and staff of the "big house". Now beds lie around the perimeter, and run side by side across the centre of the garden. There's space for a veg patch, and hopes of restoring the glasshouse, where a few fig and peach plants cling to the garden walls. One large patch of lawn has been bordered with a yew hedge and will eventually be backed by a pretty border of flowers. "When the hedge has grown up and thickened out, the ultimate aim is to hold events there," says Clarey.

With a marquee in situ, it would be the perfect spot for an English country garden wedding. The guests could even pick their own buttonholes on the way to the party.

Manor Garden, Eryholme, Darlington. T: 01325-721-860; W: flowers@manorgarden.co.uk