British Flower Week

Hand tied posy for my girl, all sorts of garden gorgeousness in there, roses, lemon balm, chives, fox gloves, clematis

In the fresh sunlight, with gardens and kerbsides bursting into ebulient flower, this has always been my favourite time of year. I want to capture some of this vitality and bring this outside gorgeousness into my home, that means vases brimming with British flowers mixed with leaves and grasses.

A herb scented tussie mussie with roses, thyme, chives and ferns for my ma

In my mind it’s always been a big question why on earth do we import so many cut flowers, when as a nation of keen gardeners we are entirely capable of doing a very beautiful job ourselves. When I had an allotment any diversion away from veg growing into flower growing was frowned on, this notion seemed daft to me, to get vegetables you need insects and enticing them in with flowers seemed like a fairly obvious ploy. Thankfully the importance of supporting insects with flowers in crop production has been recognised, things are hotting up, dare I say getting exciting.

Last year over on her blog Goddess on a Mission, I spotted Vanessa Kimbell had zealously taken up the cause of promoting British Flowers. The mission was to raise awareness that we have been squandering air miles importing cut flowers ignoring an amazing product growing on our doorstep. We can take advantage of the crop and divert some of the budget spent abroad on cut flowers back to the UK. And through research I discovered all sorts of wonderful goings on, Georgie Newberry at Common Farm Flowers, can do flower farmer extraordinaire is the energy and dynamism behind establishing the weekly Twitter chat  #britishflowers. Interest is growing, people realise they can have year round beautiful bunches of British Flowers and even brides are seeking them out.

No waste here tiny egg cup bedside posy made with the scraps, even the thug alkanet can look dainty

This week is British Flower Week, let’s hope in the future they become a fact of life and we no longer have to ask for them.