CUT FLOWERS

Words by Caroline of Hidden Gate Blooms

We talk about food miles, but what about flower miles? The fresh flower industry in Britain is enormous, with over £2 billion spent on cut blooms annually. Only about 10% of these flowers are grown in the UK, with the majority of flowers grown in Kenya and The Netherlands. Taking into account transport, fertiliser, water use, and labour conditions, a bunch of flowers grown in Kenya or The Netherlands will produce over 30 kilograms of CO2. If grown outdoors in Britain, this figure is around 3 kg.

What can you do? You have a couple of options!

1. Shift away from carbon-loaded flowers and opt for seasonal British blooms.

Buy locally grown flowers. Farm shops often either grow their own flowers or buy from somebody local. You can look up where other local flower growers are through organisations like Flowers from the Farm or The British Flower Collective. If you’re near Chesham, I sell my own at The Hidden Gate Blooms

If you can’t find local flowers the next best option is to order some British flowers to be delivered to your door. This is possible through companies like Organic Blooms and Flowers by Clowance. And Abel and Cole are also now offering fresh flowers with their vegetable deliveries.

2. Grow your own. The lowest impact flowers of all. 

Great flowers to plant are the type that you get multiple flower stems from; often called “cut and come again”. The great thing about these type of plants is that they look great in your garden, but you can also cut a vaseful for your house every few days.  Flowers I would recommend, that would supply you with the most blooms throughout the summer are cosmos, cornflowers, dahlias, snapdragons and sweet peas. 

A note on compost

PLEASE choose a peat-free. Most bags of multi-purpose contain between 70% and 80% peat. Peatlands are one of the world's most important carbon stores and when they're drained the carbon is released back into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. There are some really great peat-free composts to choose from these days, like New Horizon, Sylvagrow and Melcourt. These composts are in the same price bracket as most multi-purpose composts.