Sarah Jackson of Sarah’s Flowers Cheshire. Sarah Jackson was made redundant just a few weeks ago and she’s already set up a business that’s blooming.

The 45-year-old florist was working at a flower wholesaler in Manchester before the pandemic forced flower shops to close their doors.

Now she’s creating floral arrangements from the living room of her Congleton home and has more than 1,000 followers for the Facebook page she set up in mid-May.

"It’s just gone absolutely bonkers," she said. "I’ve got so many orders coming in that it can be hard to keep up with them all. I’m working out of my living room at the moment, but I’ve got a shed arriving next week to work from."

Sarah, who says she has been arranging flowers since the age of 10, decided to step in to help after she heard about people unable to buy funeral flowers during lockdown. One of Sarah’s floral creations. Word soon spread and by early June she was self-employed and buying flowers from a branch of the wholesaler where she used to work.

"A lot of people want to send thank you flowers at the moment or to send flowers as a pick-me-up. I could also see that people were panicking about funeral flowers. It’s hard enough only being allowed 10 people at a funeral at the moment without having no flowers.

"I deliver the flowers myself and it means I can see how much it means to them just to see a bouquet of flowers. I wouldn’t have had that same response just a matter of months ago." Sarah’s Flowers Cheshire. Customer Janet Lawton said: "When my sister passed away I couldn’t get flowers for the coffin and this wonderful lady created a beautiful coffin topper for me and she has been doing the same for numerous others and also making and delivering bouquets for all occasions.

"She does charge for these items but it has made so many people happy, especially those like me going through the death of a loved one. She is spreading happiness and is taking a huge risk and starting a new business during this time."

Sarah’s Flowers Cheshire delivers within a 20 mile radius of Congleton, including to Biddulph, Kidsgrove and Leek.

Sarah added: "I’ve been able to find a positive from a negative situation. If people find themselves in the same sort of situation as me with redundancy then I’d advise them to just go for it and to think what else they can do.

"There is definitely help out there for people who need it, although I haven’t sought that out myself. If anyone wants to chat to me about setting up a flower business then I’m more than happy to give them support.

You can visit Sarah Facebook page here .

The Sentinel and StokeonTrentLive have launched the #IAMOpen campaign to support local businesses left counting the cost of lockdown.We now hold an #IAMOpen power hour on Twitter between 2pm and 3pm every Thursday where we retweet businesses from the StokeonTrentLive Twitter account directly […]