British Flowers The Chelsea 2015 Edition

After the Valentines Bouquet 2015 fiaso which you can read about here, I was slightly surprised to see a Tweet earlier in the year frrom Interflora saying that their Chelsea 2015 stand would be all about celebrating Bristish flowers and I immediately sent them a message asking someone to contact me. I received an email from a Brand Manager introducing herself and saying how pleased she would be to show me around the stand. I replied, sending the article I wrote, and said, in essence, dont do this half heartedly and dont let the growers of the UK down.

So imagine my surprise to hear from Gill Hodgson of Flowers From The Farm that she had been informed there were Dutch bought flowers being put into the stand. I emailed everyone I could think to email at Interflora and got a message this morning from their Marketing Director that she was happy to speak. And here is the run down of the conversation.....

It seems the decision to go British was to link in with the RHS who at one point wanted a British theme to the Floral Marquee this year. But then the RHS changed their brief, Interflora realised they didnt really need to go the whole hog to use British flowers but just didnt bother to say they werent going to. And my guess is they think they would have gotten away with it if it werent for the beady eyes of those there!!

However, shocking and appalling as that is, its the next bit that really got to me. This Director seemed quite adamant that the UK flower industry was not able to fulfil what she wanted for the stand. I asked which growers she had spoken to and it quickly became apparent that there had been one conversation with one wholesaler, and nothing else and that the flowers had been ordered only in the last few weeks, not months in advance as they ought to have been.  Having spoken with Gill this morning, we now know that many if the required blooms are available, and that growers across the country have a huge array of other blooms ready and waiting.  When this was questioned she asked me how I would feel if I were a bride and the flowers I had been promised or requested werent available, to which I naturally replied I would trust my British florist to know what would be available and expect there to be substitutions due to our climate if and when necessary. But apparently this is not how Interflora work, which is no surprise in reality, but just very disappointing that they have leant nothing from the previous furore. No understanding of seasonality, or that dreaded word sustainable, and I doubt any thoughts for air miles or chemical footprints. 

Interflora had asked me to write an article for their in house magazine, Mercury, and the original idea would be that off the back of the Chelsea stand I would explain to their florists why they should buy British where possible. But considering this exchange, their corporate stand that if they want it they shall have it and their total lack of real engagement with the amazing British growers across the country who are continuing the amazing fight to keep our cut flower business growing, Im not going to write that article. 

Instead Im going to repledge my allegiance to the British flower farmers, growers and the florists who fight for them by using their blooms. And Im going to ask you to do the same. If youre visiting Chelsea buy a British buttonhole to wear to the show. Ask the florists which blooms are British. Ask why they are not all and what Interflora are doing to support our blooming industry. And away from the show ground? Support them with your hard earned pound. Talk about them. Tell your friends and families about the way flowers are produced in South America and Africa and ask them to see flowers as a luxury item that you cant buy for a fiver with your weekly shop.

I guess what we take from this is that the fight must continue and it strikes me that whilst Chelsea is bringing horticulture to the fore in the next few days, we must shout loudly and be heard. Use social media, tweet @interflora, comment on their Facebook and join in with the #grownnotflown hashtag on both Twitter and Instagram!! Lets get this out there whilst we can. The British Flower Industry has resurrected itself, lets make sure its success continues.

British narcissi snapped at Common Farm Flowers! Beautiful, scented and UK grown.

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Some Love for our Botanic Gardens

Botanic gardens, be they large or small, pull me towards them like a bee is drawn to nectar. These, often ancient, gardens with their collections of often rare, and always magical plants speak volumes not just about the British love of plants and gardens but also about the history of plants in the UK, the way they were collected and eventually planted out. Many a collector sent their finds back to Kew, or another of our world renowned botanic gardens, and those gardens would sow the seeds, nurture the plants and then offer out the propagation of these plants to nurserymen. The plants we take forgranted as being the backbone of our gardens began their life in the country being looked after by these incredible places.
Bristol has a wonderful botanic garden, that today sits just north of the Downs in the garden of one of the University of Bristols Halls of Residence. It has moved here quite recently from another site and it is proof of the brilliance of the team who work there, both paid and voluntarily, that it looks as though it has been there forever. The garden has 4 core collections, Evolution, Mediterranean, Local Flora and Rare Natives and Useful Plants and these can be seen used over a selection of gardens that include a herb garden, a Chinese Medicine Garden, beautiful herbaceous borders that are set out to show which plants are pollinated by which insects, or indeed small mammals in some cases, as well as sections based on the evolutionary collection and the collection of plants native to Bristol and its surrounding area.
It also has amazing glass houses with a National Collection of Lotus, which are beyond beautiful and offer an ethereal beauty to a glasshouse that also house the Victoria Amazonica waterlily and a huge collection of Nepenthes.
But, like every botanic garden in the UK and probably worldwide, it is being squeezed by budget cuts and constantly is having to fight to survive. Its well documented that Kews budget is always under threat but so are the budgets of the majority of these gardens, as few universities actually use them as a resource hence their constant fight for survivial.
So what can you do to help? Well make sure you know where your local botanic garden is and use it!! So many people I speak to about the Bristol Botanic Garden are completely unaware of its existence and I imagine the same is the case for many. Visit, become a member or a friend, go to their events or even volunteer to help in the garden or in some other way. An hour helping them once a week with marketing or admin releases someone else to raise precious funds or other do other vital roles that are less easy to find volunteers to cover.
Here are a few photos of Bristol Botanic Garden that I took at their recent Bee and Pollinators Festival.

 The Amazon waterlilies with the Lotus plants growing above them are quite beautiful in the tropical glasshouse.

 Always good to see a bee buzzing around at a Bee and Pollinator festival!!

 This is a custard apple and it was growing in the Native American Food Garden on which there will be a full post soon.

The wonderful bird of Paradise plants, which in their native countries are pollinated by sunbirds.

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For the love of all gardens all hail the NGS!!!

Im actually going to write a post about gardening!! Well, sort of. Im certainly going to write a post about gardens.

Every year I make an effort to visit an NGS garden or several. I do this for various reasons but mainly because I do love a garden and I really like to see what people are doing, how theyre using plants and why they are using them the way they do. Its fascinating to see how people put together their gardens, be they designed in a specific way, or with a nod to a specific garden genre or even a specific garden. Sometimes the plant pallette is the definitive design brief, be that English cottage garden or jungle, or sometimes it can be the size of the space that defines the design. And sometimes there is no design brief and its a persons very individual collection of plants that creates a garden that is opened.

I have visited some spectacular gardens, ranging from urban jungles to cottage gardens, to ex-Chelsea show gardens and productive biodynamic gardens to garden squares and designed landscapes. Gardens that have taken years to evolve and gardens that have been designed and installed in mere weeks. Gardens that are entire lifes works, including gardens of passionate plant collectors where one species is very much in the fore, to gardens that are still evolving and new. Gardens belonging to young and old, to men, women, couples and families. But most importantly, and heres the thing, to people who are passionate about their outdoor space and the way in which it is used. 

To gardeners. To growers. To plantspeople. Call them what you will, these are the people behind the gardens. Those who work tirelessly in the days and weeks before they open for that one day, to create their idea of heaven for you to see and wonder around, notebook and camera in hand. They make cakes, prepare plants for selling and often produce leaflets with planting lists and plans so you can take inspiration from their gardens away with you.

And they do this for love. Proceeds, which this year are £2.637 million, go to a variety of charities, including MacMillan Cancer Care and the Marie Curie nurses, as well gardening charities such as Perennial and supporting the Garden Museum to have a garden intern each year. They are Macmillan and Marie Curies biggest donators, giving each £500,000 this year. 

I have never opened my garden, but my mother opened hers the year before she died. It was, ridiculously, to her the biggest achievement of her life. She felt her garden was far from finished but had been encouraged by a friend who also opens her garden each year, and it was an enormous success. Teas were drunk, cake was eaten, plants were sold and over 200 people visited and stood in awe of the spaces that had been created in 5 short years. The rill and pond, the woodland garden, the kitchen garden, the rose arbour and the loosely named orchard, were visited, discussed, photographed and enjoyed by a line of people who were genuinely interested and pleased to see what was going on. For a woman who had spent years teaching and inspiring young people, to think this was the biggest achievement she had ever had was a little ridiculous, but I think it shows the passion of the hundreds or maybe thousands or millions of gardeners who create these beautiful spaces that we so rarely get to see. 

Ironically less than a year later we were relying on Macmillan nurses to see Mum through the last days and hours of her life, and they occasionally retreated to the garden for a tea break, aware of the sad irony of the situation themselves whilst returning to her to tell her what they had seen, or to bring her a posy of what was flowering in her beloved patch at that moment.

Occasionally a dissenting voice arises about the NGS and the gardens that open, as if the dissenter expects to see something designed to Chelsea Flower Show standards behind each entrance. To those I say, behave!! These are peoples gardens first and foremost. They are little pieces of paradise. Visit with open minds and be prepared to understand the people as much as their garden. Marvel in the fact that in their spare time this is what they do, what they love and be happy that they want to share it with you, even though they are often terrified. Understand they are often baring their souls by opening this space, in a way that only an amateur artist accepted for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy might understand. Be kind, be mindful and suggest thoughts but be mindful of open criticism, particularly if you arent find of it yourself!!

But most of all I say, in a bizarrely proud and British way, visit these gardens, these people, these souls. Buy some tea, take some photos, support those charities and enjoy the gardens whilst being proud of the charities you are helping to support.

To find your local gardens visit www.ngs.org.uk, where you can also discover how to go about opening your own garden to visitors through the NGS, whilst supporting their charities.

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