What is the answer to a guilt free posy?

Flowers from Sarah Raven's Complete Cutting Patch with a David Austin James Galway Rose

I don’t know many people who don't appreciate fresh flowers in their house. A posy of sweet peas by the bed, a jug of roses in the kitchen or a show off bouquet in the sitting room; flowers bring the garden inside.

For all their beauty though there is a dark side to cut flowers.  It’s a minefield of poor worker rights, pesticide exposure, water-source pollution linked to the vast flower farms around Lake Naivasha in Kenya and that is before we even get to the issue of air miles and carbon footprint.  Much of the European flower trade is subsidized and in view those flowers could just as easily be grown in the UK.

Of course one of the best solutions is to buy British flowers but even then it’s not that straightforward, because heating greenhouses in the UK to grow certain varieties of flowers expends more energy than if they had been grown aboard.  Looking for the fairtrade logo on flowers certainly solves many of the concerns that I have about workers rights, sustainability and ethical trading, but this still leaves the fact that the flowers then have to be flown in and transported thousands of miles. This isn’t a new problem.  As far back as 2006 Defra published figures showing that the transit of each flower creates far more than its own weight in CO2 pollution.  

So what is the answer to a guilt free posy?

For the time short buying a British grown posy has to be the most obvious choice.  I notice Waitrose are really supporting our British flower industry at the moment.  It’s good to see. In much the same way as buying local food, there is a pride in provenance, reduced air miles and a sense of patriotism in supporting our own.

Sarah Raven at Perch Hill Farm demonstrating how to make up a bouquet

In the current economic climate buying flowers for the home each weeks seems pretty extravagant, but chatting to Sarah Raven  about the dilemma of cut flowers she advocates that really the best way to have beautiful seasonal bouquets of flowers that are also economical is by growing.

Sarah is an expert in growing flower and her philosophy of about getting the most out of the space you have, growing your own cut flowers and doubling up on seasonal planting makes good practical sense.  She suggested panting in succession so that the same space was interesting through out the year.  Certainly for me I shall be planting tulips under my cabbages from now on and I was keen to try out her    cutting garden, especially when I realised that her cut flowers book had been on my shelf for over ten years. 

Sarah kindly arranged for me to try her instant cut flower complete cutting patch, which retails at £99.  I was initially unsure that I would ever pay that much for a cutting patch.  It seemed expensive and extravagant for anyone to spent that much on flowers.  I planted the plants in the rain and looked at some pretty tiny plants surrounded by mud. It was hard to imagine that these tiny plants would turn onto the glorious bouquets that were promised, but they have.  The flowers have been absolutely stunning, despite the weather, the chickens, the dog and the children best efforts to share the same space all the plants have bloomed into stunning displays of summer flowers.

The price of the complete cutting patch has more than been justified and I can happily recommend that you get more than your value for money back.  I’ve made up five had tied bouquets that would easily have set me back £25 a bouquet and had a constant supply of fresh flowers for the house which on making a quick mental calculation I have probably saved £60 over the summer buy not buying flowers. 

Of course it occurs to me that I could grow the flowers even more economically by using seeds next year.  When I asked Gorgie from Common Farm Flowers where she gets her seeds from she said she looks for seeds from small specialist nurseries. “There are so many seed catalogues out there but my favorite ones to use are really small specialist such as Chiltern Seeds, Special Seeds and Higgledy Gardens… you get some really unusual seeds from small scale passionate horticulturalists, but equally you can use annual mixes from the larger suppliers such as Thompson and Morgan too.”

As I walk out into my garden to pick my flowers I feel a sense of wonder and satisfaction. I won’t say that picking them is completely guilt free because as I snip the prettiest blooms and pop them into a bucket of water I remember the positive affects of fairtrade that I’ve seen for myself and then I wonder how well our own British farmers doing.

Click Below to listen to my chat with Sarah

listen to ‘British Flowers  .. support our own ’ on Audioboo

Perch Hill Farm 

  

Buy British Flowers

British Cut Flowers by The Real Flower Company

I love flowers.  I’m one of those people who always has flowers in the house, however I had an odd moment not so long ago.  It was as if I had been somehow unveiled.  I had thrown down a pack of unseasonal Kenyan grown green beans one of my children had added to the trolley.  “We’re not eating those," I said” they are out of season, flown in and who knows what the people who picked then got paid.. now put them back and lets get a local cauliflower instead!”

I arrived home with my shop and unpacked.  When all else was put away I turned to my treat.  The flowers.  I unwrapped the packet and as I was throwing it the bin I noticed in tiny letters grown in Kenya.  It was January.  How could I not have noticed?  How could I not have questioned?  How far had they have been flown?  Oh they clocked up a sorry carbon trail.  I was horrified that despite considering myself to be a seasonal local All British supporting consumer  I hadn't applied it to flowers !

  

 As I researched I discovered that one of the main problems is flower miles. We import over 80 per cent of cut flowers. The flowers that I bought were probably picked in the morning, packed into energy-intensive refrigerated planes and flown over 6,000km — or 3,700 miles and sold to me the next day.

I was fairly upset at my choice and took it up with my local florist, but as it turns out flowers flown from Africa, she said often use less energy overall than those produced in Europe.  She referred me to a study that showed that the emissions produced by growing the flowers I bought from Kenya, where it is warm and sunny all year round, and flying them here could in fact be less than a fifth of the carbon footprint than those for flowers grown in heated and lighted greenhouses in Holland. 

Then there is an argument that says  that  by trading with developing countries that we will Kenya for instance there are thousands of people, mostly women, who rely on us buying their flowers for their livelihoods, but on the other hand I read that the Kenyan people are now no longer growing their own food as they grow flowers for export instead.  That can’t be right.  

A report from FIAN says that “for many workers, their insufficient wages constitute a violation of their right to feed themselves and their family" knows Sophie Vessel from FIAN Austria. "Moreover, they are exposed to highly toxic pesticides and do not benefit from any proper protection, which violates their right to decent working conditions” adds Alena Věžníková from Ecumenical Academy Prague.”

Reading deeper it turns out that in India, Columbia and Ecuador, many of the workers suffer from work-related health problems.  There is no regulation of pesticides and certainly substances that we wouldn’t dream of using here because of the impact on the environment and on our own health are being used in developing countries as floriculture increases.

British, ethical, sustainable, seasonal cut flowers that smell divine by The Real Flower Company.

It turns out as I googled that there are lots of artisan flower companies in the UK producing flowers and I called Gorgie Newbery of Common Farm Flowers.  She grows and sells British cut flowers as well as running courses on growing your own flowers to cut, and when I asked if we were limited she laughed "there are so many british flowers to choose from and there are british flowers all year round."  She rattled off a list  "Roses, Azaleas,  Carnations, Cornflowers, Honeysuckles, Delphiniums,  Daisy, Iris, Sweet Williams, Freesia, Fuschia, Gardenia, Gladioli, Hollyhock, , Heather, Iris, Jasmine, Larkspur, Lilac, Lily-of-the-Valley, Lupin, Marigold, Orchid, Peony, , Rhododendron, Stock, Sweetpea, , Tiger Lily. 

Daliaha, Sun flowers, Asters, Love in a mist, Cosmos, Cerinthe, Ammi, Orlaya, poppies and sweet peas to name just  a few."

So it's not like we are not spoilt for choice!

I was talking  to Chantal Coady of Rococo chocolates about flowers earlier today and she told me that she really loves the flowers from The Real Flower Company.  " if anyone wanted to send me flowers I'd love them to be from The Real Flower Company.  They are glorious with beautiful blowsy British blooms and they are scented.  It's as though you have walked out into a quintessentially English garden and cut yourself a bouquet and the fragrance is amazing."  

The Real Flower Company really sets the standards.  Based in West Sussex they opened there first shop in London in July 2008 within the fabulous food hall in Selfridges on Oxford Street.  They now offer same day delivery in London (by the greenest form of transport - a delivery trike- to many postcodes!) 

Of course I couldn't afford to buy myself a bouquet of these every week - but my point is the same.  They produce, grow and supply British flowers all year round.  and for those of us who are on a budget you can easily grow your own.  I've bought some incredibly beautiful looking Sweet pea Prima Ballerina from Thompson and Morgan.   - "gorgeous, lightly scented blooms ideal for cutting and are bred by one of the world’s leading Sweet Pea breeders. Each stem averages 4 blooms in a unique tricolour of lilac, purple and cream enhanced by intricate veining on each flower."  and at just £1.99 I shall get them in the garden as soon as it stops raining ! 

In the meantime I think we need to face up to the fact that buying imported flowers is not helping anyone.  It seems appropriate to write about this as a food lover because as we are having a food revolution so many us are now looking at our food in such a positive way.  We support artisan producers, farmers markets, organic, sustainable, seasonal and local. We take such care as we consider the provenance of out food. Many of us have taken it step further and keep chickens, grow vegetables and even cure our own bacon. It’s time we do the same for flowers. Buy British Flowers and grow your own.

Let’s take a stand.

It will be pretty  - I promise. 

For just £1.99 you can grow beautiful fragrant pink sweet peas this Summer from Thompson and Morgan