An Autumnal Celebration

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floral workshop, Hebden Bridge, pelargonium cuttings, propagation workshop, salvia cuttings, Simply by Arrangement

I can’t believe how quickly this year has whizzed past. As this is only my third post of the year, *looks sheepishly at screen*, it probably goes without saying I’ve found it hard to keep up with work, gardening and other commitments. Something had to give and unfortunately that turned out to be this blog.

It’s been a year of trying to focus on what’s important. Lots of seizing the day, grasping the nettle and all manner of other cheesy clichés. There’s nothing like turning forty and having an operation to make you look at life with renewed vigour. There have been garden visits a plenty, which will provide lots of blog post potential if I can ever get back into the blogging groove, a ‘100km in a year’ swimming challenge (I’m at 63km), and my allotment flowers appeared on the front cover of the RHS The Garden magazine.

Next up is a project that I’m really excited about. I’ve been invited to give a class on propagation by the fantastic flower grower-florist Sarah Statham of Simply by Arrangement at her gorgeous garden and workshop in Yorkshire. Forget about the post-holiday blues and the darker nights because Sarah and I have planned a day that will celebrate all that the early autumn garden has to offer. In the morning I’ll show workshop guests how to propagate pelargoniums and salvias. You’ll get to take cuttings from a selection of great varieties, which you’ll take home in vintage clay pots and a handmade seed tray.

Lunch will be a delicious affair created by Christie, Sarah’s business partner who’s otherwise known as Mrs B. Mrs B’s food has become legendary among workshop attendees, so guests are in for a treat. Then, in the afternoon, you’ll be able to pick from a selection of flowers and foliage from Sarah’s garden, my cutting patch and local flower growers to make a stunning table arrangement to take home. There’ll be dahlias galore! Sarah will be on hand to offer advice on how to arrange – have a look at her Instagram feed to see her gorgeous floral creations.

The course starts at 10.30am at Sarah’s workshop near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire and will finish about 4.30pm. The cost is £180 and this includes lunch and refreshments throughout the day. And … there’s only one place left!

If you fancy extending your stay in the area you won’t be disappointed. The nearby town of Hebden Bridge is a mecca for lovers of independent shops. It’s nestled in the glorious Pennines, which should still be clad in purple heather, and the Rochdale Canal meanders through the valley. I can highly recommend a walk at the nearby Hardcastle Crags too, and if you’re a lover of the Brontes, Haworth is only a short drive away.

For more details go to simplybyarrangement.co.uk and to book a place contact Sarah at simplybyarrangement@sky.com.

Hope to see you there!

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Scent in the garden, British Flowers Week and a flowery giveaway

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Bare Blooms, British Flowers Week, Lancaster and Cornish, Scent in the Garden, The Cut Flower Patch

Home grown cut flowers – sweet Williams and pinks

First of all, my apologies for the lack of a May ‘Scent in the Garden’ post. Chelsea Flower Show, work, Wellyman’s final exam and then a week in Dorset have intervened and meant May has disappeared in a blur.

It just so happens that this month’s scented post coincides with British Flowers Week. This is the third year this week-long celebration of British grown blooms has taken place. Britain used to be self-sufficient in cut flowers before the advent of cheap/subsidised fuel meant it was cheaper to import flowers from across the world. In recent years a greater awareness of the environmental costs of imported flowers and a growing interest in seasonality have meant there has been a resurgence in British grown blooms. Thanks largely to a growing band of incredibly hard-working and talented small-scale flower growers across the country it’s now possible to buy super fresh, seasonal flowers with a local provenance.

Scent is one of the features so often lacking in imported blooms. Cut flowers have often been bred for other qualities – longer stems, shelf-life, ability to withstand cold stores – and scent is lost in the process. Chilled storage which keeps flowers fresh as they are transported also impacts on scent. Just think about those strawberries you pick at the allotment and how you can smell them, all warmed by the sun, now think about those from the supermarket kept chilled; the contrast is quite amazing. Growing your own flowers for cutting or seeking out British grown flowers with scent is the way to bring scent indoors. And even if you’re reluctant to pick your own flowers – I know how hard it can be when you have a small garden to take a pair of flower snips to your favourite blooms – there are so many fabulous plants that will fill your garden with scent all summer long.

For me June is a fabulous month for scented plants. Sweet Williams have started to bloom on the cut flower patch. There’s an air of the old-fashioned about them, conjuring up thatch cottages and gardens festooned with honeysuckle-clad arbours. I find them tricky in the garden though as they are quite stocky plants, they don’t tend to mingle like other plants, hence me devoting space to them on the allotment. They are biennials, so sow some now for flowers next year, but don’t feel you must dig them out after they have finished flowering in late summer, I have a clump from last year which is healthy and flowering once again. They will tend to get woody over time though so sow some every year to have young plants at the ready.

Carnation ‘Memories’ ©Ian Curley

Sweet rocket is another deliciously scented biennial with the purest white flowers or dusky-pink blooms. It’s a great plant for attracting moths to your garden as its scent is much stronger on an evening. Pinks have to be one of my favourite flowers. They don’t really like my soil – it’s a tad on the acid side for their liking – but I tend to get a few years from plants before they need to be replaced with new ones. I have ‘Gran’s Favourite’ and ‘Fragrant village Pinks’ in flower at the moment, lining a bed on the cut flower patch. The white-flowered ‘Memories’ is in a container – one way around not having the chalky soil they prefer. Garden worthy plants, they also make fabulous cut flowers which I’m picking in huge bunches at the moment.

Philadelphus is a plant I remember from childhood. There was one by my parents’ gate and I used to love standing there and sniffing the flowers. It’s blooms are fleeting compared to other plants, but I wouldn’t be without the mass of white, orange blossom-scented flowers taking over a corner of my front garden at the moment, the scent drifting in through an open window into my lounge.

Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’

Roses are perhaps the classic scented flower – as long as you don’t buy the imported cut flowers which never have any perfume. Currently in bloom in my garden are ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, ‘Geoff Hamilton’ and ‘A Shropshire Lad’. If you’re thinking of growing roses, now is a great time to seek out a specialist rose garden (the National Trust has some of the best rose gardens). June is their flowering peak and you can take notes of those that please your nose the most.

Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) ©Ian Curley

Red valerian (Centranthus ruber) is an underrated plant, in my opinion. It’s incredibly easy to grow. Why do underrated and easy to grow seem to go hand in hand? OK, it does have a tendency to self-seed, but it will tolerate most soil types. If you keep on deadheading it over the summer you will curb its tendency to pop up all over the garden and encourage it to flower right through into autumn. It might not be high on lists of scented plants but it does have one. Maybe not as sweet as a rose, but lovely nonetheless, and as it’s another where the scent is strongest in the evening, it’s great for moths. There’s honeysuckle too clothing the fence in the front garden and this little beauty, Tiarella ‘Creeping Cascade’. I bought it mainly for its foliage but have discovered that its pretty flower spikes are also sweetly scented.

Tiarella ‘Creeping Cascade’  © Ian Curley

All this scent means it’s a veritable feast for my nostrils. And they all make great vase material. If you’re a reluctant flower picker I urge you this week to celebrate British flowers, to take your flower snips into the garden and to just pick a few stems. Even if you simply plonk them in an old jam jar and put them on the kitchen windowsill I can guarantee they’ll make you smile.

In honour of British Flowers Week I’ve joined forces with two lovely ladies to offer 3 fantastic gifts. Chloe Plester of Bare Blooms and the British Flower Collective grows beautiful flowers in the garden of her home in North Oxfordshire and is offering one of her gorgeous bouquets. Sian Cornish of the online haberdashery Lancaster and Cornish uses flowers and foliage from the countryside around her Cornish home to hand-dye bamboo silk ribbons. They’re perfect for tying a bouquet, decorating a vase or embellishing a gift and she’s giving away 3 ribbons. Alongside these will be a signed copy of my book The Cut Flower Patch.

For more details on how to enter (UK entries only, sorry!) take a look at the following links.

The British Flower Collective

Bare Blooms

Lancaster and Cornish

or take a look at my Instagram page. Good luck!

Are you bored with snowdrops yet?

Tags

Colesbourne Park, Cyclamen coum, Galanthus 'Rosemary Burnham', Sir Henry Elwes, snowdrops, The Plant Lover's Guide to Snowdrops

A sea of snowdrops at Colesbourne Park

If the answer to the title of this post is yes then you probably won’t want to continue reading. I know, I know, you can’t get stirred for galanthomania at this time of year. But lets face it, flowery delights in February are a little thin on the ground, we’ve all had enough of winter and are a bit desperate to see some signs of life in the garden. That’s not to take anything away from the beauty of snowdrops but I do think they owe a certain degree of their popularity to the fact that they bloom so early in the year and there is little else to compete for our attention. For a period of about four weeks from mid-February to mid-March gardens with collections of snowdrops are at their peak and it’s hard to not be blown away by the spectacular sight of carpets of these nodding white flowers as far as the eye can see. In fact it can trick you at first glance into thinking it has snowed and that it’s not actually thousands of flowers. Colesbourne Park in the Cotswolds is our nearest snowdrop heaven. Our last visit, a few years ago, was marred by the discovery the camera battery had barely any charge left and, at the time, we didn’t have a spare. But I’m always happy for an excuse to return to a great garden.

Galanthus ‘Rosemary Burnham’

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to have plant labels dotted about and it does make photography a little difficult.  At somewhere like Colesbourne, which is displaying a collection of different varieties, it’s incredibly useful. In fact I’m increasingly finding myself scrabbling around in gardens hoping there’s a label somewhere so I can find out what a particular plant is called. It’s even more important with a plant where the distinctions between some varieties are not that obvious at first glance and perhaps, in the case of snowdrops, even after a few glances. I did hear several ‘they all look the same to me’ comments whispered among visitors as they passed by. I was of this thinking a few years ago when I was just happy to see clumps of snowdrops, but recently I have been slightly bitten by the galanthus bug. When I say slightly I mean I can spot and appreciate the differences between a collection of snowdrops now, but I’m not yet prepared to spend £25 on a tiny pot with one flower and a few leaves in it, let alone the £1390 plus £4 postage paid yesterday for one bulb of Galanthus plicatus ‘Golden Fleece’. My new-found interest has been ignited partly from some of the blogs I read, and partly from Naomi Slade’s book The Plant Lover’s Guide to Snowdrops and the recent talk she gave at the Botanic Gardens in Wales. It was fascinating to wander around Colesbourne on Saturday with my newly appreciative eyes spotting varieties I now recognized and tuning my eyes into the subtle and not so subtle differences between the various varieties.

Galanthus ‘Jaquenetta’

When you first enter Colesbourne the gentle slope and woodland area is a sea of white. These areas are planted with the common snowdrop Galanthus nivalis, the scented variety ‘S. Arnott’, ‘Hippolyta’, ‘Ophelia’ and ‘James Backhouse’. All have formed substantial clumps and are divided in the summer to increase their populations. The initial snowdrop collection was started by Henry John Elwes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but it was largely forgotten about until the current owners of Colesbourne, Sir Henry Elwes (the great-grandson of Henry John) and his wife Carolyn, started to uncover plants and build up the collection. We were lucky enough to have a quick chat with Sir Henry and glean a little bit of his expert knowledge. Apparently the best time to divide your snowdrops is in July. At this point in the year there is nothing to be seen of the snowdrops above ground as all the foliage has died back, so at Colesbourne they employ a basic system using coloured sticks. Yellow sticks are placed near the clumps as the leaves die back and white sticks are used to mark areas where there are, as yet, no snowdrops. Then in July they lift the clumps, divide them and replant. When I asked him what was the best method to introduce snowdrops into a garden he said it was with potted bulbs at this time of year.

A charming spring planter

Small groups of the rarer varieties are planted closer to the house, in borders, raised beds and planters. Displayed this way it’s easier to appreciate what makes them so special. My own favourites were the unusual ivory, green-tinged variety Galanthus ‘Rosemary Burnham’ and the green, frilly petticoated ‘Jaquenetta’ (see above photos). I loved the stone troughs that were dotted about with snowdrops planted alongside iris and cyclamen. Snowdrops can be tricky in containers but large ones like this trough would be worth trying.

Cyclamen coum

Snowdrops aren’t the only attraction to Colesbourne. They have incorporated other winter and early spring-flowering plants. I don’t think I’ve seen such large vibrant clusters of Cyclamen coum, the shocking pink flowers shouting out at you. There’s a growing collection of hellebores, gloriously scented winter honeysuckles and viburnum. It’s a magical spot. Apart from the gentle hum of visitors chatting, the valley in which the estate sits is incredibly peaceful and there’s a real feeling of modern life not intruding. This is an old estate with classic parkland, mossy stone balustrades and urns, and a tiny church. The lake, created to provide hydro-electric power for the house, is stunningly and ethereally blue. It’s believed the colour is due to the colloidal clay in the water.

Colesbourne lake

There’s still time to kick off the garden visiting season with some fantastic displays across the country of snowdrops and early spring flowers. I’d love to hear about your favourite gardens to visit at this time of year.

Flowers, friends and the finish line

Tags

Angie Lewin, autumn flower arranging, Petersham Nurseries, The Garden Gate Flower Company, The White Horse Flower Company

Autumn inspired arrangement

It probably wasn’t the best of ideas to go to Cornwall for an October break two weeks before my book was due in but, in my defence, I had booked it when my original deadline was February 2015. The reason for my visit wasn’t to see the sea, although I did manage to squeeze that in, it was something altogether more flowery. Becca and Maz of The Garden Gate Flower Company had decided, back in June, to celebrate the end of the growing season with a get together of flower growers/florists who had come to know each other via Twitter. There’d be the chance to chat, pick flowers and arrange, how could I resist. At that point my book deadline was the middle of February so it wouldn’t be a problem, I could easily squeeze in a break away. Then I worked out I could get everything I needed for the book done much earlier and it was agreed to bring the deadline forward. Scroll forward to a Sunday night in the middle of October and a restaurant in a converted lifeboat station in a tiny Cornish fishing village. I’m so excited to be meeting a group of flowery friends for a pre-workshop dinner but quietly panicking about the long list of jobs still left to do.

It struck me, on this Sunday evening how Twittter has transformed how people come together. There were those of us who had already met several times and had become firm friends, then there were those who were meeting for the first time. We had come from Wales, Wiltshire, Berkshire, London, Oxfordshire and Cornwall. It’s quite strange to think that only five or six years ago these connections would have been difficult to forge, if not impossible. And, you know the night has been a good one when the restaurant staff are doing everything, bar switching off the lights, to get you to leave.

Salvia uliginosa

So to Monday and Becca and Maz’s flower farm. There was chat followed by guided tours of their flower fields, more chatting, then flower picking. For a bunch of people who had spent all year growing and picking flowers it was perhaps a little odd that we all got so excited about picking yet more. It reminded me of when you’re out for a meal and the food other people have ordered always looks more interesting than your own plate. That surely isn’t just me?!!

We spent the next few hours arranging and photographing our creations in one of the stunning barns. Initially, I felt like a bit of a fraud. Here I was surrounded by people who arrange flowers for a living, whereas my own flower growing and arranging has only ever been to satisfy my own taste. I found myself and my bucket of flowers on the same table as Lindsey from The White Horse Flower Company, who will have arranged for an epic 70+ weddings this year, and Thomas from Petersham Nurseries, who creates beautiful floral designs for the rich and famous in London. Eek!! But everyone was so friendly, it wasn’t long before I was so absorbed by the process that I forgot my nerves.

Flowers and barn wall

Becca and Maz specialise in growing and arranging for weddings. They had such a beautiful array of flowers in soft colours that it was a real treat and inspiration for me to get my hands on flower varieties I haven’t grown before. My mind is still buzzing with ideas for my next cut flower patch. I can’t say I had any great plan when I initially started picking. I had taken a real shine to a particular dahlia called ‘Peaches’ and my arrangement ended up being built around that. I also took inspiration from the autumn countryside around the farm. I love teasels which capture the fading glory that I love so much about this time of year; they also remind me of my favourite artist Angie Lewin. In the end, my arrangement included dahalis, teasels, the rusty coloured and faded flower spikes of dock, straw flowers, Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’ and some fantastically sculptural seed heads from a couple of hedgerow plants such as ribwort plantain.

Another beautiful arrangement

Then came the photography. I’ve become a bit obsessed with this whole process in recent years. It has been fascinating to learn a little bit about the difference light and the right background can make to showing off flowers. What I’d give for Becca and Maz’s barn. As one person commented ‘You could photograph anything in here and it would look fabulous’. The quality of the light, the rustic doors, mossy bricks and stone walls added so much to the arrangements we had all created.

Since then it has been a crazy couple of weeks with late nights and being driven close to tears by Windows 8. It turns out I had inadvertently clicked on some tracking shortcut which it remembered each time I opened up the document, I couldn’t get rid of the damn thing. Fortunately Wellyman worked it out in the end. This final stage is so fraught with worry that you’ll click on the wrong button and something will disappear into the ether. There was a story, which did the rounds at university, about someone who had lost their dissertation only a few weeks before it was due, in a house fire. Whether this was an urban myth or not, it was enough then, and now, to make me overly cautious, with documents backed up several times to various places and emailed to myself. But even these can be a tad confusing when you’re on the umpteeenth draft.

Fabulous flowers

I had the final photo shoot on Monday and I clicked on the send button this morning. The next month or so will consist of the publishers designing the book and then there’ll be the edit but I’m nearly there and I can’t wait to see it all come together. So, I’m really very glad that I managed to get down to Cornwall after all.

The last photo shoot

If you fancy learning about flower growing and arranging Becca and Maz run a series of courses throughout the year which are open to anyone who love flowers, you don’t have to have a background in floristry. Becca’s mum provides a delicious lunch and fantastic cake to keep you going through the day. They’re also perfectly located near Fowey to combine one of their courses with a holiday in Cornwall. For more details check out their website The Garden Gate Flower Company.

British Flowers Week and a Competition

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British flowers, British Flowers Week, flower petal confetti, Flowers from the Farm, grow your own cut flowers, New Covent Garden Market, Our Flower Patch, The British Flower Collective, The Cut Flower Patch

Flowers from my cut flower patch

Well I couldn’t let British Flowers Week pass by without a post. This is the second year of the celebration of British grown flowers, an idea devised by the New Covent Garden Flower Market, the main hub of flower trading in the UK. The idea is to raise awareness about the choice and availability of home-grown blooms and foliage in a market dominated by imports.

My own cut flower patch is burgeoning at the moment. There’s love-in-a-mist, linaria, alchemilla, achillea, candytuft, ammi and pinks. I picked so many sweet Williams the other night that I gave bunches of them away to passers-by on the way home from the allotment, and at home there aren’t many surfaces left which don’t have vases on them. Even so my scale of production, a few beds on my allotment, is tiny compared to the new breed of artisan flower farmers springing up across the country. Certainly there seems to be a renewed interest in locally grown flowers, particularly with couples planning their wedding but there’s still a lot to be done to change the attitudes of the flower buying public, florists and supermarkets if we’re to reduce the amount of flowers brought to these shores from abroad. My local supermarket has a selection of British flowers for sale at the moment but it’s still only a few buckets in amongst the ubiquitous roses, lilies and carnations. It’s such a pity when I know what they could offer.

So here are a few ways you too could support British Flowers Week:

Look for British Flowers at the supermarket, there should be stocks, sweet William and sweet peas for sale at the moment. If they don’t have any ask the customer services desk why not.

When buying from a florist ask them about where their flowers come from. It’s surprising how many don’t know as most are shipped across from the flower auctions in Holland. I asked a florist in April if they could source British flowers, she seemed a bit stumped and then said she couldn’t because the weather in Britain isn’t good enough to grow flowers at that time of year. But what about the tulips, daffodils, scented narcissi, ranunculus and irises which were all being grown in April by small-scale British flower growers? If more of us ask for British flowers it will encourage florists to source them.

Search for a local grower. There are two fantastic websites The British Flower Collective and Flowers from the Farm which list flower growers across the country from Scotland to Cornwall.

Encourage your local school to start growing flowers. There’s a renewed desire amongst parents and those involved in education to get children outdoors and to get them to connect with nature. Our Flower Patch is a fantastic education resource aimed at primary schools and youth groups. It combines growing cut flowers with teaching elements from the National Curriculum and gives schools the chance to earn some much-needed money too from the sales of any flowers.

If you’re going to a wedding this summer buy British grown flower confetti or make your own – it’s surprising simple.

Picked fresh this morning from my allotment

And finally, try growing your own flowers for cutting. Incorporate them into your garden or devote a special patch to cut flowers. It’s a rewarding experience which is fantastic for wildlife – providing pollen and nectar for insects, and it will go some way to reducing your carbon footprint. You’ll have a much greater choice of flowers available to you rather than the limited selection at your local supermarket and they’ll be super fresh. Whilst it might be a bit late to start a cut flower patch from scratch for this year, now is the perfect time to start planning for next year by sowing biennials and perennials.

To celebrate British Flowers Week a copy of my book The Cut Flower Patch is up for grabs. I know Christmas is a long way off, I’m sorry I even mentioned the word, but here’s a chance to cross a present off your list, even before summer is out!!

You need to live in the UK or Ireland to enter. If you’d like to be in with a chance of wining a copy then leave a comment stating that you’d like to be included in the draw. The competition will close at midnight on Friday 20th June. Wellyman will draw a name from a hat (he has a bit of a hat addiction so he’s got plenty to choose from) on Saturday 21st June. Please make sure I have an email contact for you so I can let you know if you’re the lucky winner.  Good Luck!

 

Say it with British flowers

Tags

British flowers, imported flowers, Primroses, seasonal flowers, Valentine's Day

primrose posy

Valentine’s Day, one of the busiest times for flower sellers across the world is approaching. You can’t get stirred for the ubiquitous red rose, deemed the perfect expression of love, but it’s a gesture that comes at a considerable cost. Whilst the creep of supermarkets into the world of floristry has made a bouquet of roses more affordable for the masses, demand means a single stem can still cost into double figures from your high-end florists. But it’s not just the impact on your bank balance there’s the cost to the environment too.

Ten or fifteen years ago a revolution in food started here in the UK. We started to appreciate locally produced food for its freshness, seasonality and provenance. I really hope that we can start to care that little bit more about the flowers we buy too. Most flowers for sale in the UK are imported, grown in far-flung countries using chemicals often banned here in the EU. The environmental impact can be huge, depleting the local area of its water resources and damaging eco-systems. Flowers are beautiful and I can’t imagine not being able to have them in my home but let’s face it, they are non-essential. And, for that reason, I think we should care about the environmental cost of the flowers we buy even more. It feels even more careless that an indulgence should damage the planet. Taking a stance and refusing to buy imported blooms doesn’t mean you have to do without though. Caring for the planet doesn’t have to mean donning a hair shirt, it’s about taking a look at what we have closer to home and sourcing British grown flowers or growing your own.

The environmental cost isn’t the only reason why I dislike imported flowers. Even if the roses came with a zero carbon footprint I wouldn’t want them. They speak little of a thoughtful gift and a declaration of love and more of the way big business dictates to us what we can buy. It was the Victorians that first made a big deal about Valentine’s Day, but before the advent of air travel lovers would have had no choice but to exchange small posies of spring flowers. It’s only really been in the last twenty to thirty years where flowers have become a commodity to be traded on a global scale.

Imported roses always look fake to me. They never open fully and, worst of all, they have no scent whatsoever. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I know for some nothing other than a red rose, or a dozen of them, will do. But there are alternatives, blooms which are seasonal and scented, which will bring spring cheer to a gloomy, soggy February. It’s hard to believe when you look out the window on to a garden that is muddy and forlorn that it is possible to substitute those imported flowers for home-grown blooms, but it is. Our reliance on imported flowers has disconnected us from the seasons.

Valentine’s heart

Walking around my garden the other day I was able to pick a small posy of primroses. I added a few ivy leaves and tied with twine and there you have it – the sweetest and simplest of flowery gifts. All the stormy weather we’ve had recently means it’s a great time to go out and collect windfall stems. Weeping birch is perfect for making wreaths because it’s so bendy. I collected these on Friday and bent them into a heart shape, securing at the base. Scouring the garden again I picked some scented stems of Viburnum bodnantense, Viburnum tinus, sacococca and winter honeysuckle. I tied these into the base along with some ivy which I wound around the heart. A home-grown, hand-made and completely free (well apart from the twine) Valentine’s gift. Pop it in a vase or jug of water and it’ll last a week. Plan ahead and you could also have early flowering daffs or any number of bulbs in pretty pots.

Now I know that men purchase the vast majority of flowers on Valentine’s Day and some of them are possibly not going to be scrabbling around in the garden for flowers and making wondrous woven hearts, but that doesn’t mean red roses have to be the default alternative. Subtly or not so subtly, depending on how you approach these things in your relationship, point him in the direction of the increasing number of amazing flower farmers here in the UK. They are springing up all over the country and many deliver too. To find your nearest try the Flowers from the Farm website or The British Flower Collective. It might seem bleak and bare out there but even in February we have British grown scented narcissi, tulips, hyacinths, pussy willow, muscari and hellebores to choose from. So this Valentine’s Day say it with British flowers.