Eureka! Let’s track how many locally grown flowers I use!
Buying Silver Grey Foliage’s first edition of the ‘Flower Farmers Planner‘ in 2023 brought about a Eureka moment for my business – it encouraged me to adopt the habit of recording what varieties of locally grown flowers and foliage I cut each week, and in what quantities. Since starting this recording habit, it has now become a bit of an addiction! Why? It gives me all sort of facts and figure about my business to help me evaluate the sustainability of what I do and also helps me to keep track, week on week, of what was in flower when throughout the year.
In today’s changeable climate, it’s interesting to monitor how flowering times shift (or stay the same) and my weekly records help me to advise you what locally grown flowers might be available at the time of your wedding or event. I can’t assume 100% that the weather or slugs will choose to play ball in the same way in 12 months time, but at least my records help me to offer advice based on experience.
Bookending the flower growing year of 2024, I can see that my delicate winter clematis were the first flowers of the year to be cut on 4th January, and were also the last flowers of the year cut on 15th December before I closed for the Christmas holiday.
Locally grown flowers in 2024 v 2023
In 2023 I only kept records from January until November (the mayhem of Christmas wreath-making workshops obviously took over in December!), but comparing last year’s record with the same period this year, I’m delighted to report that I cut just over 2000 more stems from my garden and allotment in 2024. It could be thanks to developing a system of raised beds in my garden at home, or perhaps it’s this new focus on recording which is encouraging me to be more efficient and to try to do better. Unless you’ve got something to compare, you can’t really tell if you’ve grown more or not!
This year, I managed to keep records for every week of the year and hit the startlingly precise total of 8706 stems of my own flowers and foliage in 2024. I’m delighted that as a very small scale grower with just an urban garden and an allotment plot, I’ve managed to produce 56% of the total flowers that I used in my own floristry.
As a result, I’m setting myself the New Year’s resolution of a 10K stem target for the 12 months to come! Let’s see how I do…there’s still a lot of work to be done between now and that final tally!
“How many flowers in your bouquets and arrangements are British grown?”
For the last twelve months I’ve been keeping track of the provenance of my flowers. In my view, it’s great to have figures which allow me to be transparent about this and I’m pleased to say that 78% of all the the flowers and foliage I used in 2024 were British grown. This makes my business very unusual – across the floristry industry as a whole, 94% of the cut flowers used are imports from the global wholesale network, funnelled through the international flower auctions of The Netherlands.
Out of the flowers I buy in UK grown, 13% of these come from commercial growers in Lincolnshire, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles and 9% from other local flower growers based in Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Why not more flowers from other local growers? In short because I’ve got the same period of flower abundance that they have! Looking at my records for the weeks when I’ve bought their locally grown flowers, I can see, unsurprisingly, that this has been during the UK growing (and wedding) season from March – September when greater volumes of flowers are needed in shades or shapes that I might not have in sufficient abundance in my relatively small growing space.
From October until the first signs of new growth appear in Spring, other local growers are experiencing the same winter scarcity as my own cutting patch. It’s during this autumn and winter period that my records show an increase in the use of imported flowers, along with an increase in the proportion of UK grown wholesale flowers that I use. The latter are mainly grown, protected, under glass on a larger scale than I could ever dream of. There are a limited number of flower varieties which produce commercially viable crops during the restricted daylight hours during the cold, dark UK winter, and commercial production with additional heat and light is becoming more and more of a challenge for commercial growers as the cost of energy rises.
Rose and Rainbow Photography.
“Why do you use imported flowers too?”
I use imported flowers because, like many of you, I want to enjoy beautiful flowers for weddings, funerals and events, whatever the time of year. I’m actually pretty pleased that nearly 80% of the flowers I used this year were domestically or locally grown – I think that’s an impressive annual figure for a country where only approximately 7 months of the year (or 58% of it for the purposes of comparison) have the light levels and temperature range to dependably support an outdoor flower growing season.
I love the aesthetics of flowers as well as the process of growing and arranging them, so I want to be excited about the florals I create at any point during the year. I haven’t fallen out of love with the tulips, narcissi and alstromeria that form British grown winter staples – they all have a place in my heart. However, restricting myself and you to using only these flowers for 5 months every year feels a bit like a UK chef deciding to cook only turnips, sprouts and leeks annually throughout winter – and don’t get me wrong, I love all of these veggies too. A limited diet is absolutely possible but is not always the most exhilarating of prospects. As a flower business, and having now flowered my way through more than a dozen long winter seasons, I want more variety.
As I can’t afford to simply shut down my business for 5 months each year, I’ve had to decide what course to chart with regard to flower sourcing. Experience and much thought has led me to my current position where I’m happy to use imports even though I’ll always prioritise locally grown flowers above all else. It’s the best way to I’ve found to create what you tell me you want for unique flowers to mark special occasions, especially when these fall outside the growing season of Spring and Summer.
Always remember, however, that if you want only UK grown flowers, whatever the time of year, there’s always a way to realise that brief too – it’s just a whole lot easier when the sun returns!
One thing you can be sure of, whatever the time of year, is that I’ll always be honest about where my flowers come from – and now I’ve got records to call on too!
Read more about locally grown flowers
Find out more about my flower sourcing
Flowers from the Farm – Why choose British grown flowers?