It started with

the garden

Real-life Secret Garden, to Positive Potions HQ

Four acres within the walls, derelict for over fifty years. In its heyday, in the 19th century, there was a sixty-foot palm house and a two hundred metre long peach house. Kew visited, to get some tips on glasshouse-building. There were forty gardeners, a gas works (seriously) and daily deliveries of coal from Liverpool. Imagine!

But the door was shut. A forest had sprung up where before were flower-beds. Glass-houses and potting sheds were hidden in the undergrowth. Heligan? This was Heligan with bells on.

Line drawing of a thyme plant with multiple branches and clusters of small flowers or buds, in dark green.

‘Don’t attempt it, you’ll fail!’

Only made me more determined.

Candid Meyrick in pink dress with yellow necklace and sunglasses tending to plants in a greenhouse or garden.

Hidden in the undergrowth

Line drawing of a bunch of grapes with a large leaf attached.

Irresistible

My husband’s great-great-grandfather, clearly fond of champagne, had buried his empties neck-down in the soil to make a ‘champagne border’.

I discovered this one day, with the help of some bypass loppers. At first, I thought: how about a cocktail border, to carry on the theme?

A wet garden border covered with green ivy plants, with champagne bottles partially buried in the ground.

But then:

The Sugar Question

A health crisis made me quit sugar and alcohol. Good decision. I tried to fill the gap with green juices and fermented drinks. But sugar so often still lurked in there...

So apart from water, what was there?

Cue deafening silence

I am a great believer in the wisdom of Gandhi: ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. Isn’t that how all businesses begin? If there’s something you want, and it’s not there, then you’ve got to make it yourself.

So that’s what we did

We created a permaculture paradise. Where previously there had been forty gardeners, we had two and a half, so we had to be smart. Necessity is after all the mother of invention. So we established the world’s best compost bays and relied on solar panels, moon- and companion-planting. We gathered herbs by the armful and started to have fun. Brewed. Distilled. Mushed, steeped and macerated. Generally played around until I came up with the idea of botanical drink-drops, in eight delicious flavours.

Line drawing of a peppermint plant with leaves and flowers.

The Result: Positive Potions

Small, pocket-sized bottles that can make a big difference to your health. Packed with anti-oxidant, immune-boosting botanical power.

We hand-make each one on Anglesey, using the traditional tincture-making method and without alcohol, sugar, sweeteners or any other junk.

Just the incredible benefits of super-charged botanicals – herbs, flowers and roots. They taste delicious, too.

Assorted bottles of Positive Potions botanical drink-drops surrounded by colorful flowers.

Now the garden is flourishing again - a botanical paradise*

*Paradise means literally ‘within the walls’, from the Persian ‘Pairidaeza’

A woman wearing a large sun hat and sleeveless dress tending to a garden of vibrant orange flowers.
Pink and white rose petals in a woven basket.
A garden filled with white yarrow flowers in foreground and blue flowers in background, with a brick wall and trees in the distance during daytime.
Line drawing of a botanical illustration with various plants, flowers, and leaves arranged in a curved pattern.