Dahlia Beach

[inthepages]

Finally now Tattle is open I can share these. I used to work at Chelsea and have some Dahlia Beach stories…

During press day every year, the Queen would visit the show on the Monday. Only some exhibitors get invited to stick around for this. During the walk around last year, the Queen had a private moment with Chelsea Pensioners that no-one, not even the event organisers, was allowed to take photos of. Despite being told she couldn’t take photos, they literally watched her run over and snap a quick picture which she had to be asked to remove. Absolutely no shame. She repeatedly broke the rules for sharing too much video footage which is due to a contract the event has with the BBC which limits what exhibitors can share. She seemed to think she was above it and the rules didn’t apply to her.

She tried to launch a social media consultancy at some point (is she still doing this? I don’t follow her). She got in touch with the Chelsea social team and pitched her services by saying they weren’t sharing enough video footage of Chelsea and that she could do a better job. Not sure doing cringey reels makes you more of an expert than a whole team who do it for a living. She was then explained the formalities of the BBC contract they have (that again limits footage shared even for the event organisers) and then they didn’t hear back from her again presumably because she was too embarrassed…!

Absolutely hilarious that the RHS have banned her for a year. No-one at the RHS likes her. Those other rules she broke that she didn’t mention were the social media rules again. She posted footage from the King on press day that absolutely isn’t allowed, and she know this, the RHS have told her this before, and she doesn’t care. Not playing by the rules has bitten her in the arse now, hasn’t it?

 

[Alicolacreme]

As far as her rant about the haters being jealous, showing them up and all of that hot air… Andie, we really don’t give a shit whether you fail or succeed, what we take the piss out of and are grossed out by is your attitude. You’re incredibly privileged, the majority of your ‘successes’ (on the rare occasion that there are any) are because of the hard work of others, which is volunteered. Your products are ridiculously priced and are a rip off, with people not getting the products that were advertised.
You assume everyone is going to bend over backwards for you because that is the culture you’ve cultivated on your IG platform, so when reputable places like the RHS don’t fall for your crap you insult them and don’t take responsibility for your actions. You seem to not grasp at all the way that farming is effected by weather, don’t plan for it at all and then act surprised when nature hasn’t adhered to your plans.
There’s so much more that can be said, I highly doubt that any of us on this thread are jealous of your business or your life, we post here and on other threads when we feel the need to call out people on public platforms that we think are dodgy, and as for you being a ‘farmer’ I can 100% bet you that if IG closed down tomorrow that you wouldn’t continue with Dahlia Beach, what would be the point when you can’t perform?

 

[Notenoughgin]

She acts like a teenager rather than a middle aged woman with a whole career behind her. The arrogance and lack of respect for literally any one or any organisation is unbelievable. Banks have rules / send letters with instructions on how to keep your account open etc? RHS has rules and protocols for exhibitors? Experienced horticulturalists advising how to lift/ store your dahlias over winter?

Just completely ignore all of that and when everything goes tits up just do a few reels lip syncing like a lunatic, con suspecting instahuns into giving up their time for free, to save your floral sorry arse.

 

[SquishyPudding]

I’m so glad I found this thread! And sorry, but I don’t agree with anyone saying well done for ‘owning it’ or admire her for owning up - she only ‘owned up’ because she got caught, and is trying to use it as sob story to get her cult rallying around her. It wasn’t a mistake, she knowingly broke the rules but probably thought that she wouldn’t face any consequences as she was the darrhhhlllliiing of last years’ show so they would let her get away with it so they could still have her there. And like someone said in the comments, it’s not an apology when there is an arrogant side note at the end saying she will carry on breaking rules and pushing things as far as she can go. Her followers (cult) all seem to be middle class midi dress wearing privileged women - the ones who are allowed to be on the feed anyway, those who benefit her. I don’t know how she manages to get so many people working for her for free in exchange for some overpriced flowers.

Also I’m so glad lovely Eve got out of there, she was being taken advantage of big time!

 

[teaandtoast8]

I couldn’t find a thread but I can’t be the only one who finds Andie from Dahlia Beach insufferable?
So for anyone who doesn’t know, Andie lost her wedding photography business due to covid (she also says she is no longer friends with her bff/business partner because of this which is weird if it’s due to covid). She believes this is a “rags to riches” story and that she is a hero for rebuilding her life. She seems to ignore that millions of people worldwide were affected by covid and by in much much worse ways.
Andie started an online dahlia store in 2020 which originally was a collection of dahlia tubers, seeds and a series of YouTube tutorials. However, she quickly got carried away, signed up for a flower farm and swiftly forgot the clientele that had paid £60 for 5 tubers that you could easily get for £20 elsewhere.
Andie decided she is a Girl Boss who needs no experience in farming because she instinctively knew better because she has lots of Instagram followers who tell her “you go queen!”. Any time an actual farmer in real life would tell her she wasn’t doing something correctly she would slag them off on stories followed a fortnight later by a snotty crying video that things had gone wrong (exactly as professional farmers had predicted). Then followed a pattern of reels and reels of Andie praising herself and her achievements with a once a month Live about how it’s all too much for her and she is a failure. She often has to cancel events because she has failed to listen to advice.
The worst part of Dahlia Beach Inc, is the use of unpaid labour. I believe it’s unforgivable. Andie has resources. She is forever expanding the business; dahlia collections, farm, workshops, reels courses, trade wholesale etc, yet it’s all built off the back of getting her fan girls to come and do the manual Labour whenever she gets behind schedule.
The reason I am prompted to start this thread is that she posted a job advertisement for a farm hand. Despite the fact that she flounces around making reels rather than helping her unpaid workers, she has advertised for a farm hand whose responsibilities seem like back breaking work and will only be paying minimum wage. Considering her resources and background, I just find it distasteful. She has a Soho House membership and is often relaxing and swimming there. She should have kept the business small and paid people properly while she got it started properly. She just uses Instagram to get all the acclaim and adoration she needs.
She even got a crystal award from the Chelsea Flower Show this year after all her harrassing of the officials, but let her kids carry it and smashed it to smithereens almost instantly.
I’d love to know if anyone else has found her evolution on Instagram difficult to watch?
As an aside, I never see anyones results from her tubers and feel sceptical that they’re any better than any garden centre ones, especially at £60 for 5

 

[inthepages]

Her latest post is infuriating. Why does she and her followers think this is all such an overreaction on the RHS’ part? Before the shows happen, the teams all spend days doing security drills and planning for scenarios like terror attacks. They’re huge events and security has to be taken very seriously.

I love that some of her followers are like “oh yeah it’s all old out of touch folk making these decisions who aren’t on social media and can’t see how great you are”. No, its people who are very much on social media and can see how unreliable and unhinged Andie is and keep an eye on her posts. The RHS is very well aware of her behaviour and don’t care about her social media echo chamber.

 

[tabletalk]

Aw I like her! She worked really hard for DB last year and Andy is so rude and passive aggressive to her.

Yes! At Malvern flower show this year she was very dismissive to James Alexander Sinclair while doing a talk in the marquee and basically told him to keep quiet. She didn’t even realise how rude she had been and the audience were shocked. I unfollowed her on the spot. He didn’t lower to her level and just carried on professionally with the demonstration.
I also found it super irritating when she constantly talked over people and frolicked around videoing all of her unpaid minions.

When I was following her I couldn’t believe she had the audacity to make regular ‘poor me’ requests and guilt trip people to come and volunteer for the day and also ask them to bring their own lunch. Have none of these people realised she lives in a huge thatched house in a village outside Oxford with family membership to Soho Farmhouse!
It’s fine to be aspirational but it’s annoying to see wealthy people becoming wealthier at the expense of other peoples time and energy because they’ve been deluded by a sob story on Instagram….

 

[teaandtoast8]

Imagine her going in there, setting up a camera on the other side of the warehouse, walking back and sitting on the floor to cry so she can then post it for sympathy as if this isn’t entirely 100% her own fault?!

 

[stardust21]

All this says to me is that they were insanely over priced before.

 

[CBS1]

I mean just the fact that she actually filmed herself partially crying makes me immediately not feel sorry for her, what an attention whore

Your actions lead you to this, don't break the rules and you won't get punished, quite simple!

 

[bluberrieoh]

Glad to see I’m not the only one! I actually bought from her last year then got annoyed over her use of unpaid labour/favours and unfollowed. At the time, i thought I was the only one so did a google and found that glassdoor reviews of her previous business had a bunch of employees/interns saying how she was basically overusing them, underpaying, never doing any work herself etc. Has that been shared here? Haven’t gone through all 5 pages yet.
---
This is the glassdoor page of her wedding video business: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Shoot-It-Yourself-Reviews-E1095007.htm

Abysmal. Hiring apprentices (gotta use those gov.uk schemes), teaching them nothing, paying them £3 and a bit per hour and forcing them into dodgy contracts. Really puts all the unpaid labour we see with dahlia beach into context

 

[whatanabsolutewholloper]

Everyone on her Instagram Post yesterday telling her to hold her own flower show and lo and behold...

View attachment 2293561

oh man, I hope she does, it will be another Fyre Festival and I’m here for the absolute car crash that will be

 

[Yellowsubmarine]

Another week another chaotic panic advert for Labour - this time for a florist with just a week before her Dahlia fields open to the public. Not sure what decent florist would want to work Saturdays and Sundays for £12 an hour - seriously, Tesco and Aldi pay more for cashiers and shelf stackers.
Never known anyone so unable to hold on to employees. Whatever happened to the PA who was going to solve ALL her organisation problems? How long did she last - 6 weeks??
I admire anyone who starts a small business and puts the hard graft in to make it work. It’s not easy. But I do feel she needs a reality check about how many years that can take - many small businesses don’t make a profit for the first 5 years or more. She always wants to sprint before she can crawl and so there are mess ups every week. It feels a lot like she’s selling a soap opera of dramas and tears these days rather than a credible flower farming business.

 

[Slip slip knit]

She’s just done a live standing outside HSBC holding a load of Dahlias and ranting about her money, how is this not the most popular thread on tattle?!

 

[stardust21]

She got banned from RHS shows because she let people into Chelsea using other peoples passes. It was totally the right decision on the RHS’s part, it’s freaking Chelsea for Christ sake!! Safety rules aren’t there without good reason… it’s what really put me off her because she was on insta crying and making out the RHS had been harsh, encouraging her followers to tell the RHS they’d been harsh. They weren’t harsh at all. Beach Dahlia should have been banned entirely after the performance she put on, on social media about it.

 

[squacksquack]

She’s far too much of a ‘boss babe’ to be getting her hands dirty with the hard work:View attachment 1652889
View attachment 1652886

Mate…. They’re just flowers. You’re not staging a coup. Please calm yourself.

 

[AutumnDays]

She once said she doesn’t business plan, instead just runs with her ideas which results in mayhem. She jumps from one thing one thing to another - pyo flower farm / buying the bus / dahlia boxes / flower shows / flower markets / wholesale field / buying or renting office cabin / buying expensive irrigation system / merchandise / talks of franchising / talks of flower subscriptions, etc, etc. Looks to use volunteer labour or hire staff to actually do all the work, persuades her husband to join her venture. I wonder how much of a profit can she possibly hope to make. This year alone - flower farm delayed opening / banned from some RHS flower shows / no mention of London markets now. She can‘t blame the weather on everything - last year she went on holiday while the wholesale field wilted in the heat, this year she was late sowing the pyo flower farm, especially given she didn’t start the tubers off under cover. Farming is tough as do weather dependant but surely she was aware of that.

Instead of wanting everything in five minutes, it might be wiser to concentrate on the pyo flower field, include a few rows for market/florist sales and the dahlia boxes. Won’t make her a fortune or enable her husband to work on the venture full time but it would be manageable and doable. Do more of the manual work herself and accept that her Income will be during the two/three month flower season and when she sells the dahlia boxes. She could do a floristry course and make Christmas floral arrangements/run workshops for an extra bow. Build up slowly while also remembering dahlias are a trend at the moment, don’t have a great vase life and grow other flowers also.

 

[whatanabsolutewholloper]

OMG I am so glad to have found this thread, you are my people!!

Every time I go on insta she is there screeching with the world’s most irritating voice and jumping around on a shit reel. Does the woman ever have her gob shut? She looks like a halfwit!

And give over with the rags to riches story - former tv director, husband works in the tv industry, country pile in the cotswolds, on holiday every five minutes, au pair…

Yes I know I should unfollow but somehow I just can’t

 

[tcaketess]

She said in her post that she broke several rules but the big one was the breach of security. Why on earth is she breaking and bending rules to begin with? They probably think she’s a nightmare now and word has gotten around the other shows, serves her right.

I think she has broken so many rules that she won’t ever be asked to exhibit again. If you look at her reel at the weekend she still thinks it’s ok to over step the boundaries. Her Blenheim Palace reel also shows her breaking rules by asking for a bigger pitch and being very rude on social about event helpers - she absolutely thinks she’s above any rules - she is an absolute nightmare and lives the victim card when it doesn’t go her way

 

[Slip slip knit]

OMG I am so glad to have found this thread, you are my people!!

Every time I go on insta she is there screeching with the world’s most irritating voice and jumping around on a shit reel. Does the woman ever have her gob shut? She looks like a halfwit!
View attachment 1540026

And give over with the rags to riches story - former tv director, husband works in the tv industry, country pile in the cotswolds, on holiday every five minutes, au pair…

Yes I know I should unfollow but somehow I just can’t

It makes me laugh when she says they are really struggling but as she’s saying that she’s walking around Soho Farmhouse .