British Flower Week 2024
What you need to know when buying British and locally grown flowers and foliage.
It’s British Flower Week, celebrating all British Grown Blooms.
Buying British and locally, has numerous benefits and most of them are green, such as a lower carbon impact, no chemicals, reduced plastic waste and a wide range of flowers and foliage.
If you want to buy locally and seasonally then here are a few things to be aware of:
Colours are seasonal, white and yellow, followed by blue and purple, now, in June, think pink before we move onto the yellows and oranges of later summer, then we hit the reds of berries in Autumn. The different colours are designed to attract different pollinators at different times of the year.
The weather was always changeable and now, well it’s highly unpredictable with climate change. So, although growers may do their best to produce a certain flower at a certain time, unless they are using energy to heat or cool availability really does depend on if it’s been a cold and wet spring which holds some plants up for example. The good news is there is always a beautiful alternative. Please be flexible.
Different flowers have a different vase life, and that is no different for British flowers. We can advise you if you need something that will last a couple of weeks. We pick and condition and take to market often within 24 hours, certainly 48. In the spring I had comments about how long my daffodils lasted. Well, I picked them just about to open and many were in your living room the next day and they had not travelled far nor been out of water for long after they were picked in the cool of the morning when the sap was rising.
I also grow native flowers that are great in the vase, because I think they are beautifull and special and if we pick them and for the home then we wil hopefully value them more.
When you buy from a local grower you are supporting a local business and the flowers in your home are not covered in chemicals so feel free to bury your nose in them. In the field I am looking after the soil and I just love seeing the insects and the birds that enjoy my growing field, and though this business I am doing my best to support the environment at the same time.Finally, I made up a few bouquets of my own farm grow flowers and left them locally in a public place for some lucky person to find and hopefully make their day!
