23/06/2024
This 👇🏻
British flowers? Only 14% are grown in the UK
This week's guest newsletter is by Olivia Wilson, florist, grower and founder of British flower studio Wetherly.
Up until the 1950s most flowers we encountered in the UK were grown in the UK. Then, huge investment from the Dutch government saw the first airfreighted blooms arrive, followed by the arrival of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ flower lorries in the 1980s. Market dominance was set and today 86 per cent of all UK cut flowers are imported. This is a huge change from the dedicated flower trains from Cornwall to London, filled with narcissi and violets. It seems almost inconceivable that the violet nosegays of the early 20th century, so delicate they lasted just a few days, could still be so appreciated for their perfume and beauty.
Flowers grown to be exported must be sturdy enough to survive transit. Many of them arrive in the UK via Holland from places as far flung as Ecuador and Ethiopia. To allow for this, flowers are deliberately bred to have ruler-straight stems (something you don’t find in nature) and be fragrance-free; the biological effort required to smell sweet, using up energy that could otherwise prolong vase life. And so, a system’s been created where forced flowers are regularly grown as monocultures, in places where pesticide use and workers’ rights are less regulated, and corporations continue to prioritise economics over ethics or the environment.
The £1.4 billion UK floristry industry is dominated by the supermarkets (29 per cent of people buy their blooms at Tesco) and British growers aren’t helped by the fact that there’s presently no legal requirement to label the country of origin. Not to mention the fact that according to HMRC, the work I do as an agroecological flower grower is yet to exist. But this lack of governmental ‘support for hort’ gives individuals even more cause to champion the resurgence of British flower farms, many of which are listed at flowersfromthefarm.co.uk.
For me, witnessing a bud burst open is a meditation modern life provides less and less room for. Flowers are scientifically proven to bring happiness and reduce stress. I know, because I co-founded charitable enterprise, Bread & Roses, pioneering the use of floriculture therapy based on the research, and
I have the anecdotal evidence to support it (wearebreadandroses.com). Naysayers may sniff at my nosegays, but I believe in the power of flowers.
➡️ https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/opinion/where-have-all-the-flowers-gone/
