The First Wildlife Certified Business In The UK

Dr. Sally Gouldstone is a resident based up at Rosemains Steading and it just so happens that she is the founder of Seilich, a wildlife friendly skincare based company. The majority of her ingredients are grown here, at Preston Hall, in a meadow just outside Sally’s workshop. So not only does she create these amazing products, but she also gives us beautiful views and a meadow to look out on from our office.

Here she tells us a bit about Seilich and a few insights into growing a wild meadow.

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you started Seilich

I grew up in a very remote farmhouse in Lancashire and spent pretty much my entire childhood outside exploring the natural world. From an early age I knew exactly what I wanted to do and would tell anyone who asked that I wanted to be a zoologist. After moving to Edinburgh to study zoology I quickly realised that plants made much better study subjects than animals though as they didn’t move, so I quickly swapped to botany!

Before starting Seilich I worked as a research scientist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. I had a brilliant job working in some of the most remote and unique habitats in Scotland on some of our rarest botanical species. Before that I worked on some really exciting projects all around the world, from the dry deciduous forests of Madagascar to tropical swamp forests of Borneo (where I quite literally bumped into David Attenborough!), as well as working as a science communicator for the BBC.

After having a baby I found that the science world wasn’t such a good fit however, and decided to start a business that would enable me to use my botanical knowledge and continue my passion for nature conservation whilst having a bit more control over where and when I worked.

2. What is the ethos behind the business?

The idea of Seilich was simply to create a business that used its profits to conserve nature. Today we operate a nature positive, circular business model whereby we first create spaces for nature from which we harvest the ingredients that we use to make our products, and then use our profits from the sale of these products to create more spaces for nature for the benefit of local wildlife. As a result of this focus on nature we’ve become the first Wildlife Friendly Certified company in the UK. The spaces for nature we create are predominantly wildflower meadows although we’d love to expand this one day to include wetlands and woodlands too!

3. Your background is science, how has that affected how you have grown the business in relation to the plants?

Working as a botanist I spent a lot of time in the lab making botanical extracts, usually of things like DNA or particular proteins that would enable us to better understand the species we were studying. Through this experience I gathered a good understanding of the chemistry of plant compounds as well as the extraction methods themselves. Having left the science world I spent some time thinking about how I could put these slightly unusual skills to work, when it dawned on me that the botanical extracts we use in natural skincare products, like essential oils and glycerites, require a similar knowledge set to produce. Being able to not only grow our own plants but to also make our own botanical extracts from them has made Seilich and our products really unique within the skincare industry,

4. You are now 5 years down the line, is Seilich where you thought it would be?

No! Not at all. When I first started I remember thinking I would grow some plants in my garden and make soap in my kitchen, which I planned to sell now and then at a local market. Once I started and saw the opportunity for growth I just couldn’t stop though, and I quickly began writing business plans, looking for land and a workshop. Today we have a range of over 15 products, employ 5 people and have over 8 acres of wildflower meadows alongside our workshop at Rosemains Steading. It’s a much bigger endeavour than I had planned but the way I see it, the larger the business is, the more spaces for nature we can create, and that’s what sits at the core of why we’re doing it in the first place.

5. Biggest learning experience?

It’s been really interesting for me to work within a faming landscape. Given the scale we’re working on, we’re neither farming on a small scale, nor gardening on a big scale, but something in between. This brings its own challenges, one of which is the wildlife that is also using the farm! The deer and hares in particular think all their dreams have come true when they come into the meadow and find we’ve just planted out a fresh set of marshmallow or chamomile! There was one year when we planted over 60 rose bushes around the edge of the meadow only to come out the next day to find that the hares had nipped them down to the ground (leaving the clippings behind as they didn’t even seem to like them!). If we were gardening on a smaller scale we might be able to protect the plants from damage like this, but on this large scale we just have to let them do what they will, and make sure that we’ve planted enough for the deer, the hares, and us!

6. You grow your own produce in a wild flower meadow right outside your workshop, any tips to getting that started?

Wildflower meadows are notoriously difficult to create, being quite temperamental to establish and then changeable as they age. I don’t think that the issue is with the meadows or the wildflowers themselves however, but with our expectations of them! A lot of the blame falls on the photographs used on the seed packets for a start, where bright annual species such as poppies, cornflowers and corn marigolds create a bright flower-filled scene. Natural meadows are comprised of around 80% grass however, a slightly drabber counterpart to their flowery friends, and when the grasses start to grow amongst the flowers people often think somethings gone wrong. Then there’s seed choice, . I believe there is a meadow for every situation, from a shady woodland edge to the base of a dry south facing wall, but sometimes finding the right seed mix for the conditions can be tricky, leading to ‘failure’ of the meadow. It’s also really important to store the seeds in the right way before it gets sown. I see so many people say that they sowed their meadow seeds in the spring, just as the instructions told them to, but nothing established, and it turns out that they’d been storing the seeds in the house over the winter with the central heating on!

Finally we come to succession, a natural process whereby meadows age and begin to change. It’s really important to cut a meadow back, at least once a year, and most importantly to remove the grass clippings. This way, nutrients are removed from the system and it stops the meadow from progressing to the next successional stage. Although nature rather likes change, us humans are less keen, so by making these small interventions it keeps nature in check!

Click here to find out more about Seilich.

March Guest Gardener