This is an opinion piece, if you know differently in your region we would LOVE to hear from you. We just want to open up the conversation.

We are conscious that our last posts may suggest that unless growing, buying British etc that flowers and the floristry industry is wrong. So why isn’t everyone buying and using British flowers?

The truth is there are very few flower growers large enough to stock florists wholesale. Some specialise in particular flowers, some grow many varieties, some mainly grow for seed and so on. The rest of the growers in the UK are on the whole, smaller scale. They also tend to be florists or designers themselves, like us, and therefore a proportion of the flowers go directly to their own work. This means that when a florist gets in touch, we may not have the quantity or the varieties to reliably fulfil their needs on a regular basis. It also means, that the many hundreds of growers in the country are growing on a scale that provides flowers for their immediate locality. One idea which I really like and can be argued is how as much produce as possible should be grown and provided in order to be sustainable long term. However, that raises the issues of access, equality and discrepancies across the country in stock varieties, seasons etc.

Other feedback we have noticed on posts, growing groups and from florists is that British flowers or perhaps growers choice in flowers, don’t keep up with trends, notably wedding colour palettes. How important is this? We have discussed the realities of choosing the right plant for your growing conditions, some just aren’t suitable. Living in the global world of social media, influences from Australia, America and the like effect styles and tastes, however this often also includes ingredients that aren’t readily available here. Plus, energy is required to develop new varieties quickly, often not quickly enough for the wedding industry. These new varieties can go through a few years of unreliable germination, small flower sizes or are often something called F1. F1 means you cannot save the seed as they will revert back to their parent variety. The long and short is, keeping up with colour trends and styles can be environmentally questionable. However, our other argument is there are plenty of varieties out there that we can grow, and with creativity offer the ‘trendy palette’. If we can keep the balance of educating each other in reliable British varieties, but also florists knowing they can come to us to provide them with on trend colours for example, then surely that’s a legitimate tick in the box?

Other feedback relates to the vase life or stem length not being good enough which is contentious issue. Often British growers are able to grow things like poppies for example, which are known for a shorter vase life, but as they aren’t travelling far and can be cut on the morning they may be needed, this vase life is all relative. And how nice is it to have a poppy, or a sweet pea, or even an unusual dahlia last 5 days, that has been grown organically and seasonally as it isn’t available on the flower market elsewhere?

As to stem length, again this comes down to individual plants we have the luxury of growing here plus the fact that many growers aren’t dousing their products in chemicals, selectively breeding long stem varieties etc. Could this all be about managing better expectations on the behalf of the person buying the flowers as we cannot compare imported with British, they are just not grown in the same way or are even the same type.

And of course, most growers only provide fresh flowers when they are in season, actually growing. Where as a florist’s work, and demand for flowers, is all year round. We could argue that in the winter months dried flowers should be used, however despite the rising popularity of them, it definitely isn’t robust enough to sustain demand for effectively half a year.

We are members of Flowers From the Farm, which is an organisation supporting British growers. However, beyond that there isn’t much in the way of infrastructure to support this sector. It seems necessary for us to start moving to regional hubs, wholesale markets where British growers can come together with their produce for florists, designers or the public to purchase. Making it far more accessible and a volume that suits demand.

I suppose I wonder, how much can we complain about people not buying British if the market lacks the infrastructure to sell British flowers effectively? How much should we prioritise convenience for the customer or expect them to do the work finding us and travelling between us? How much should we all be growing in isolation? Surely this doesn’t make sense long term?

Which ever way you look at it the British flower market needs support in order to develop. There is a map on the Flowers from the farm website where you can find your local grower.

We haven’t even begun to talk about access to the industry, land access, racial inequality and educational opportunities...

These are our observations and thoughts on the matter, we wanted to open up the conversation and would love to know yours. If we haven’t represented what you know to be true in your region please let us know.