Flower pot? Flower? Get it? Oh, suit yourself. Gilly Smith talks to Jasmine, the new florist on the Dials

There’s a new florist on the Dials. After 27 years, local legend, Ian Graham hung up his pinking shears at Christmas and handed his business over to Shereen. 

Locals will recognise Shereen Druose from her occasional stints at Jasmine Healthfood, Shop which her husband, Phooad, has been running for 17 years since the family moved to the UK from Syria. But it was the occasional stints at Ian’s that has led to something of an epiphany for this mother of three. “I’d been volunteering for Ian, helping him out, you know?” she tells me as she stores the end of Friday flowers at the back of her husband’s shop as Ian had done for so many years. “And then I started to become interested in the flowers, the colours, learning the Latin names and things like that.” So it seemed a no-brainer for Ian to ask Shereen if she’d like to buy his business when he decided after his cancer diagnosis to retire. 

“I didn’t want to,” Shereen laughs. “I’m a mum of 17, 13 and 10-year-old kids and I didn’t want a big responsibility of running a business. And then there’s my language…” It was Phooad who spotted the opportunity, not just to build her confidence, but also to expand the Jasmine empire. He looked for help online and quickly found The Sussex Flower School, just half an hour down the road in East Hoathly, enrolled Shereen, and life quickly took a more fragrant turn. 

Shereen is rapturous about Georgia Miles, director of the flower school, and who, in full disclosure, happens to be a close friend of The Whistler. We know how persuasive she can be, but for Shereen, her eight-week career course in floristry was a game-changer. “I was so worried because my English is not so good,” she says. “But Georgia was just so nice. She was so motivating and inspiring. She was practical but also warm, and I made so many friends. I kept apologising for my language, and she just …” She whisks her hand in the smiley dismissive way I recognise. “She’d say ‘oh you’ll be fine!’” 

And she was. Over the eight weeks, she learned all that she needed to know to run a floristry business, from tax to waste to where to buy the best flowers. And there was tea and cake. Plenty of tea and cake. “I still ask her now for advice, and she’s so lovely.” 

Six months in at Jasmine Florist, which she now runs with  Nikki Vincent, and Shereen has got through Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and is still standing. She’s even managing the kids after-school clubs. 

Her family are all still in Syria, most in Damascus and some in Latakia in the North. She says that although they’re safe now, the war has left a miserable economic situation. 

Her story fills them with joy; “They follow me on Instagram!”, she says, beaming. And as she tells me how she’s able to send them money herself now, she wells up. “Even when I send them £100, it makes a lot of difference to them. So that’s really wonderful. Yeah.”