A Lonely Bouquet

Tags

cut flowers, jam-jar posy, lonely bouquet

My Lonely Bouquet

There’s a lot that is negative about social media and so often the traditional media can’t wait to make sweeping statements about how these new forms of communication will be the downfall of society. They so rarely seem to cover however, the amazing tools they can be to actually bring people together, to inspire and, in many ways make the world a better place.

I first heard about ‘lonely bouquets’ from my friend Sara. She’s an amazing flower grower in Wiltshire and if it wasn’t for twitter we probably would never have met. I spotted one day that she had tweeted to say she had left her ‘lonely bouquet’ at a bus stop in her village and that she hoped it had gone to a good home. Intrigued I asked her about it and she pointed me in the direction of a blog called Fleuropean. The idea was the inspiration of Emily, an American living in Belgium and the basic principles are: to pick some fresh flowers from your garden, make up an arrangement in a jam jar or similar, attach a ‘take me’ tag and then leave them somewhere for a passer-by to pick up and brighten up their day. I just love it.

So yesterday I picked some flowers and then left them in buckets in the cool and dark of my downstairs loo to recover from being picked in the heat of the day. The plan was to arrange them last night and drop them off at my chosen location early in the morning so nobody would spot me. Of course the best laid plans and all that meant I was frantically arranging flowers this morning and had to postpone my delivery of them until lunch time when I got back from an appointment.

I had decided to pick the village doctors’ surgery for the placement of the flowers. Partly because it has an overhanging roof which would provide them with some shelter from any heavy downpours but mainly because, well lets face it most of us need a bit of cheering up if we’ve had to go along to see the doctor. There was a slight spanner in the works, as I remembered at the last-minute that it was Wednesday and that they only take appointments until 12 pm. As I sprinted around, clutching the jar and card I was worried there would nobody around to see them. The other problem was putting them somewhere they would be spotted without being spotted myself. I timed it well so that I got them to the door without been seen from outside, although I’m sure those waiting inside must have wondered why there was a hunched, black waterproof-clad person acting a little furtively on the other side of the glass door. You’re meant to take a photo of them in the spot where they are left but this would have drawn too much attention to the whole operation so you’ll have to make do with the image of them in my kitchen.

I retreated to a seat outside the primary school which was close enough for me to keep an eye on proceedings but not so close to draw attention from any visitors. And then I waited. I knew I couldn’t sit there for too long as I did have work to be getting on with but I thought it would be nice to see them taken away, and if all else failed I could move them on to another venue if they had been untouched by the time the surgery closed. I was also intrigued to see people’s responses. Would they think there was a catch or just not like them?

I had only just sat down when a Land Rover pulled into the car park. A smartly dressed farmer got out and wandered up the path to the surgery. I was silently saying in my head, ‘Pick them up, pick them up!’. I saw him stop by the door. He stood still as he was read the card and scratched his head in a very Stan Laurel way. He was obviously flummoxed by the whole idea. He went inside and minutes later came out with a prescription and got back in his Land Rover. I was a little bit disappointed if I’m honest. More cars arrived and several people walked through the door without even seeing the flowers. This was annoying. Maybe I had put them in the wrong place, especially as I knew the likelihood of people seeing them on the way out was slim. But then a woman leaving caught sight of them and stopped, bent down to read the tag. I was willing her to take them but then she too left empty-handed. Mmmm, maybe this wasn’t going to work.

A little red Corsa turned up and a woman in her twenties got out. I was a little more hopeful that she might be more open to the idea. She stopped and looked, but only briefly and then went inside. At this point I was starting to think about time scales and how long I could justify waiting in the hope I would see them taken. I have to admit to also thinking, ‘Jeez what’s wrong with you all, they’re pretty flowers not a hand grenade’. I didn’t think it was in the spirit of the idea to go up to someone and shout ‘Just taken the blinking flowers’.

And then the door opened, and the twenty something woman came out, with one of the doctors in tow. She pointed to the flowers, they stood and looked and then the doctor bent down and picked them up and they both went inside.

I don’t know who eventually claimed the flowers but I was pleased to see them taken indoors at least. Walking home I tried to suppress a grin because it felt such a lovely thing to do and it had also been so intriguing to watch people. I felt a bit like Amelie in the French film of the same name. I don’t think it’s my last lonely bouquet, I just need to think of some more suitable locations.

If you’d like to take part have a look at Emily’s blog.

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Green and Gorgeous Flower Farmers

Tags

British grown cut flowers, cut flowers, Goring, Green and Gorgeous

You might have guessed by now I’m quite keen on cut flowers, so it was with a fair amount of excitement last weekend I made a visit to one of an increasing number of British flower growers. Green and Gorgeous are based in Oxfordshire near the riverside town of Goring and have been growing a wide selection of flowers to sell direct to the public for 4 years now. A partnership between Rachel, the grower and Jo, the florist, provides stunning seasonal flowers grown without the use of chemicals and with no air miles.

I was like a kid in a sweet shop surrounded by fields of blooms. My own cut flowers are grown on my allotment in 2, sometimes 3, beds but the scale at Green and Gorgeous was something else. Rachel and Jo take their inspiration from English country gardens and all around were roses, cornflowers, scabious, sweet peas and campanulas.

Dahlia beds

I’d come to get some inspiration for my own cutting patch and with my note-book and camera at the ready there was plenty to fire my imagination. Although, a slightly worried looking Wellyman did point out I don’t have several acres at my disposal.

‘No, we don’t have the space for a polytunnel’, says Wellyman

Green and Gorgeous sell their flowers at local farmers’ markets or direct from their site on Saturday mornings, when visitors can walk amongst the flower beds and pick their own arrangement. I loved this idea of bringing the customers so close to the product. Modern ways of shopping for perishable goods may have meant more convenience but they have taken us away from the production processes involved. I believe you value a product more when you have some idea about the time and effort it has taken to grow or make it, whether that’s the fruit and veg on sale at a farmers’ market, clothes made by a dressmaker, furniture by a carpenter or flowers from a flower farmer. The anonymous rose you buy from the supermarket may well have travelled a vast distance and been produced in such a way that the environment and those growing it have been exposed to damaging chemicals. But it’s harder to know this or care when there’s so much distance between you and the production process. Being able to see the flowers growing in the fields, talk to the growers and then select what you want is so far removed from most other shopping experiences and I thought it was an inspired idea.

Masses of Sweet peas

A major part of Green and Gorgeous’ business is weddings and parties, with the option of the flowers being picked, arranged and delivered or their ‘buckets and bouquets’ service where you can do the arranging yourself. They also have a great selection of vases and containers available for hire.

Throughout the year they offer courses imparting their knowledge on growing your own cut flowers and how to arrange them, all set on their magical flower farm.

Only 15 miles north of the M4 they are well worth a visit, if flowers is your thing but if you can’t make it to them direct you can still experience a touch of Green and Gorgeous as they also send mail order bouquets.

For more information you can visit them at Green and Gorgeous.

Just a few flowers

Tags

cornflowers, cut flowers, deadheading flowers, nigella, sweet williams

My Cut Flowers

I’m picking so many flowers at the moment I’m not quite sure what to do with them all. At the last count we had 12 vases full, dotted around the house last week. At the moment, it’s very pleasurable wandering up to the allotment with my bucket and snips. It’s too early in the season to need to deadhead which can be therapeutic, or a pain in the proverbial, depending how much time you have on your hands. Even if you pick every day there are always some flowers that escape the snips, especially if you’re growing flowers like cornflowers which produce such a mass of blooms and it’s important to keep on top of the deadheading if you want to keep getting new flowers.

Cornflowers, Nigella and Sweet Williams

I’m loving the sweet williams and nigella at the moment, flowers that are difficult to find in a florists and both of which are loved by pollinators. The cornflowers are just starting to flower and there aren’t many plants that can match them for the blueness of their petals. One disadvantage of them is that the colour does fade to white. However, I’ve found that if I pick them when the buds are just about to break, rather than when they are fully open, it extends their vase life by several days, giving you some extra time before the flowers fade. Several years ago I did grow the dark burgundy coloured cornflowers ‘Black Boy’, alongside the blue variety. One day I was stood watching the multitude of bees buzzing around the flowers and noticed that the bees were hardly touching the dark cornflowers, in comparison to the blues ones, which were covered in bees. Since then I’ve only grown the blue ones. If I’m going to grow flowers I might as well do as much as I can to grow ones the bees will love as well.

Nigella damascena ‘Double White’

There were a few early gladioli tantalising nearly ready to open and I’m hoping they don’t open till I get home from my holiday. I haven’t tried growing them before and to be honest it hasn’t been the greatest success so far. The early spell of warm weather in March encouraged them to surface much to quickly and then in April some of them were damaged by the colder temperatures. Only 9 of the 15 planted have produced flower stalks.

A couple of my autumn sown scabious were also poised. Another new addition to the cutting patch, I always get excited when something I haven’t grown before is about to flower.

Alchemilla, Nigella and Sweet Williams

I did a quick trip around the plot last week before setting off for my holiday, picking flowers so that there weren’t any that might go to seed whilst I was away. The plan was to give them to someone at the plot but the miserable weather has meant I’ve seen hardly anyone up there for quite a while. Just as I was leaving, wondering what I was going to do with the armfuls of sweet williams and nigella, I spotted someone. He was delighted with them saying he was just about to go out to buy some to put on his wife’s grave. On the way home I also bumped into another plot holder and his wife, out tending their garden and they too received a bunch of flowers. It’s nice to be able to give some of the flowers to others. It’s a lovely feeling to see the flowers I’ve grown make someone smile.

The Cutting Patch Update

Tags

Alchemilla mollis, biennials, cut flowers, Orlaya grandiflora, sweet williams

My cut flower patch is such an important part of my allotment. Last year was my first year and my ideas about using some of my plot for flowers were greeted with some scepticism by the established allotment growers who couldn’t understand why I’d wasted so much of the plot on putting in paths, let alone devoting soil to growing flowers instead of potatoes and onions. However, it seems like the flower bug is catching and I won’t be the only one this year with blooms brightening up the site. A couple of the older growers were asking me where I bought my seed from, so I passed around a few seed catalogues and dished out some packets of seed I had collected last autumn. Then on a visit at the weekend I was chatting to two of them and they were telling me all about their plans for cut flowers!! Not such a strange idea after all.

My own patch is taking shape with the biennials and autumn sown annuals coming into their own. The much-anticipated flowering of the sweet williams has just started in the last week and I’ve been able to fill a good 2 buckets full of sweet rocket, honesty, alchemilla, orlaya and the last of the stocks.

Yesterday I got up to the plot early in the hope I could get a lot done before it got so hot that I started to wilt. I had to make two trips with the wheelbarrow, transporting little plants from home to the plot so that the first big plant out could commence. In went some annual asters, daucus ‘Black Knight’, white antirrhinums, didiscus, some pinks grown from cuttings taken in March and some bupleurum. There were also some small plants of lettuce, beetroot and chard for the edible part of the plot.

Sweet williams

Still at home and waiting for the second round of planting out are zinnias, rudbeckias, cosmos, sunflowers, cornflowers, gaura, dill, gypsophila and a few more larkspur. Oh, and two dahlias. It’ll be touch and go as to whether I can fit all this in. There was quite a lot of standing around with hands on hips looking thoughtful, on Sunday, wondering whether I’d had the garden equivalent of piling my plate too high at a buffet because my eyes were bigger than my stomach. My imagination is certainly bigger than any available land I have but I’m sure with a bit of jiggling around I can do it.  That’s squeezing plants in and not me doing some strange dance, by the way.

Cut flower posy

The great thing about gardening is that each year is different and new opportunities open up. I’m still very much learning just how much I can cram into a small space and for how long I can get the season to last. Plans are already being formulated for which biennials to sow later next month and which hardy annuals I’ll sow this autumn. But, for the moment, I’m enjoying this year’s first pickings from my cut flower patch.

My First Year On The Allotment

Tags

allotment, cut flowers, fruit, plot, seed catalogues, vegetables

I had a wander up to my allotment the other day. It’s looking a bit sorry for itself at the moment. It has taken a bit of a battering in the wind and rain, a local cat is using my chipped bark paths as a litter tray (nice!!) and the sunflowers that I left standing so the birds could feed on the seed heads have collapsed. On days like this it is hard to imagine how beautiful the plot looked between April and October. So I thought, as it is coming up to my first anniversary with my allotment that I would have a review of the year.

Jewel like fruit

I was fairly lucky when I took on the plot, it had been pretty well cared for and managed organically. Apparently, quite a few people had been eyeing up our plot before we got it. Initially, we were given a half plot but then someone pulled out and we were offered the other half. At first I wondered if it would be too much and there were times during the summer where it did feel a bit overwhelming but half a plot would have been way to small. In fact, I’m now coveting a derelict neighbouring plot as a possible extension since I fear I will not be able to squeeze my ever growing seed list into my current plot.

I knew I wanted to grow some cut flowers it was just how much space to devote to them. As I spent a couple of months with my notepad, graph paper, seed catalogues and piles of books I realised there were a lot of fruit and vegetables I wanted to grow too. In the end I was happy with the balance I created. The cut flowers were a great success and I was picking buckets every couple of days. Some were better than others, for example Cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’ with its taller stems and more delicate flowers worked better as a cut flower than the Cosmos ‘Sonata’ variety. The Zinnias  despite a slow start provided many a vase, although some of the colours in the mix were a bit muddy and difficult to match with other colours. Next year I plan to grow some single varieties.

It was nice to see wildlife enjoying the plot too

We had a great crop of autumn raspberries despite it being their first year and endless strawberries from plants we inherited with the plot. Courgettes, kale, french beans and potatoes have all been tasty and bountiful. I was given some baby leeks and I loved being able to pop up and dig up a leek. I haven’t had enough to see us through the winter but I’ll be working on that for next year. Sweetcorn and carrots were the only 2 crops that didn’t really work. The weather got the former and carrot fly the latter. There’ll be no sweetcorn next year but I might give carrots another try I’ll just have to come up with some ingenious method to outwit those pesky flies.

One of the nicest experiences over the year has been meeting people. There were some comments initially such as ‘So you think you can garden then?’ which made me fume. However, after a year up there I understand a bit about the scepticism that greets newcomers. The reality is not many stay the course and most do just enough to get by, spending most of their time in a seemingly endless battle with weeds that appear in between their fortnightly visits.

I have been touched by the generosity of some fellow plotholders, giving me spare plants, digging out some old fruit bushes I was struggling with and showing me where I was going wrong with my leek planting (I wasn’t dibbing them in deep enough). I think I might have been accepted since I’ve had a few practical jokes played on me. I went to water my plants one day only to discover that the ends of my hosepipe had been swapped over. The older guys are also a great source of village gossip which is invaluable to a newcomer.

Of course not everyone is friendly and the plot is certainly no utopian dream. There are a few who think it isn’t really a woman’s place digging and growing veg and some who think flowers should be kept in the garden. There are the cliques, especially as several allotment holders are related. I went up one day to discover a small pile of manure which I helped myself to but apparently the pile had been enormous. When a local farmer had dropped off the pile phone calls went out around the village with wheelbarrows mobilised well into the night. There wasn’t much left the next day. The rumour is a lot of it made its way into several village gardens. We’ll know when we see who has the best dahlias and roses this coming summer.

There was the molecatcher who insisted on putting his catch on the gatepost. I got quite a fright one day when I went to open the gate and 2 beady little eyes were staring back at me. One plot holder was happy though. He had stood and watched his rows of onions move up and down like a ‘Mexican wave’ as a mole travelled underground. He’d tried to get it with his spade but it got away.

I’ve certainly learnt a lot from my year on the plot and it has been nice to find out that some are going to grow some flowers for cutting next year as well.

So here’s to another year on my allotment.

 

Grow Your Cut Flowers – Part Two

Tags

allotment, biennials, cold frame, cut flower patch, cut flowers, Sweet peas

I posted the other day about the successes and failures on my cut flower patch this year. In this post I thought I’d share with you my plans for next year. I’m getting excited already!!

Sweet Williams at the plot

Back in July I sowed some Sweet Williams, Sweet Rocket and some Honesty. These are all biennials, so you sow one year, they put on some growth and then the following year they flower. I love biennials, you can sow them between July and September, at an otherwise quiet time of the year. You then plant them up where you want them to grow next year and then they sit there through the autumn and winter tantalising you to the prospect of what is to come. If you’ve never grown biennials before and you’re worried about the state they’re in after the winter, don’t. Mine looked pretty sorry for themselves after last winters snow and minus 16 degrees C but they soon perked up when spring came.

I’ve also planted some bulbs, some Anemone coronaria and some Gladiolus colvillei ‘The Bride’.

This year I definitely lacked enough filler flowers and foliage so my plan for next year is to improve this. I found Alchemilla mollis to be a brilliant filler. It’s lime green flowers contrasted beautifully with so many other flowers and it lasted well once cut. An added bonus is that it self seeds very freely so I am moving little plants that have self sown in the garden up to the allotment and I am edging all around one of the beds with Alchemilla. In the centre will be the early flowering Gladioli and once these finish flowering I will have some later flowering plants waiting in pots to go in.

Hardy Annuals in my cold frame

I have sitting in my cold frame a whole array of hardy annuals that I sowed back in September in the hope I will be able to get an early supply of flowers. These include Scabious, Nigella, Orlaya and Bupleurum. Although the mild autumn has meant they have put on more growth than I would have liked. I just hope they don’t succumb to botrytis. But there’s nothing really lost if they don’t make it, I’ll just sow another batch in March and have slightly later flowers.

My main aim is to make the space work as efficiently as possible. Any flowers really have to earn their place, which means they produce over a long period of time and  have a good vase life. So with this in mind I won’t be growing any Calendula or Dahlias at the allotment. I love both but they just don’t last very long when cut. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a spot for them in my garden though. I’m trying some Larkspur next year and some annual Asters. The Zinnias I grew this year just flowered and flowered but it was a mix and some of the colours were difficult to use with other flowers so I think I will go for single mixes next year, there are some particularly beautiful colours in the Plants of Distinction seed catalogue along with a great choice of Antirrhinums. I will definitely be growing Didiscus ‘Blue Lace’ again, it took a while to get going but was so unusual.

Didiscus

And of course there will be Sweet peas. There vase life is not great but they produce so many flowers over such a long period and their scent is so amazing that they are a must. I had 3 teepees this year which was a good amount. There was a period when I had so many I couldn’t pick them fast enough and I was having to give them away at the allotment but nobody complained.

My netting support system with biennials waiting to grow up through it

I will also be extending my bean netting support system to a third bed. I only used it on 2 beds partly because of expense and partly because I thought the other plants (rudbeckias) would be strong enough to support themselves. And for most of the season they were but then we had quite a stormy patch at the start of September and the rain and heavy winds meant the plants flopped over and some stems broke. It’s always hard to resurrect plants after this has happened. Some I’m just going to bite the bullet and net the third bed.

Growing cut flowers this year gave me so much pleasure. I can’t wait to see what I can do next year. If anyone has any suggestions for great cut flowers let me know.

Grow Your Own Cut Flowers

Tags

Cosmos, cut flowers, Dahlias, Rudbeckias, Sarah Raven

Cut flowers on my allotment

One of my greatest successes this year on the plot were my cut flowers. I was inspired 2 years ago by Sarah Raven to grow some cut flowers in raised beds in my garden and I loved being able to pick them and have fresh flowers in the house. So when I got the allotment at the start of this year I knew I wanted to devote some of the plot to cut flowers. This is the first of 2 posts. This post will be about this year – my successes and failures and the next post will be about my plans for next years cutting patch.

I devoted 3 of my beds to flowers with a few other patches here and there. The beds are 1.2 metres wide and just over 6 metres long. I grew the following for cut flowers: blue cornflowers, Cosmos Dwarf Sonata Mix’, Cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’, Antirrhinum ‘Night and Day’, Calendula, Gysophila ‘Covent Garden’ Ammi majus, Dill, Rudbeckia ‘Prairie Sun’ and Rudbeckia ‘Cappucino’, Zinnia ‘Sprite Mix’, 3 types of Sweet pea, Nigella, Sunflower ‘Vanilla Ice’ and Sunflower ‘Ruby Sunset’, and some Dahlias.

Cut flowers on my allotment

I grew all of these from seeds and the vast majority were started off indoors and the transplanted out. This made for a very hectic April and May but I definitely think you get stronger and healthier plants and they flower earlier.

The Sweet peas sown at the start of March were the first to flower at the end of May and then continued to flower right through to mid September. The main bulk of my flowers were over by the 2nd week in October. So I had just over 4 months of cut flowers which I was really pleased with.

Once growing the plants didn’t need much extra care. For 2 of the beds I put in wooden stakes at the corners to a height of 45cms to which I attached a long roll of bean netting across the whole length of the bed so that the plants could grow up through the netting and it would act as a support. Because my beds are so long I put in bamboo canes at 1 metre intervals along the edges of the beds and tied the netting to the canes just to give the netting itself more support. There’s no point the netting sagging otherwise the plants will flop all over. I found this support system worked really well and I’m going to use it on the third bed next year.

Inevitably some flowers worked better than others. For example the Cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’, had longer stems and more delicate and interesting flowers than the Cosmos sonata.

Cosmos 'Candy Stripe'

The Gypsophila were lovely but created quite a straggly patch which made it difficult to pick the stems I wanted. They were also over quite quickly and would need successive sowing to really be of any use.

The Nigella I grew was a mix of whites and blues but it proved to be really disappointing. The flowers opened up and were neither one nor the other and quite a few of the flowers were stunted and deformed.

The sunflowers I grew were beautiful. The ‘Vanilla Ice’ variety are a lemony colour with smaller flowerheads and smaller more delicate stems and worked really well in arrangements. The ‘Ruby Sunset’ variety were much larger and more substantial flowers and looked amazing grouped together, about 6-7 stems in a tall vase. Very Van Gogh like. Unfortunately they were a variety that produced pollen which made quite a mess. I am reluctant to use a pollen free variety because I always try to garden with wildlife in mind but I think with a third of my plot devoted to flowers I shouldn’t feel too guilty if I do choose a pollen free variety next year.

Rudbeckia 'Cappucino'

The Rudbeckias were brilliant but I did struggle to get the ‘Cappucino’ variety to germinate and in the end ended up with only 2 plants. So all in all I was pleased with my first proper attempt at supplying myself with cut flowers throughout the summer. I learnt a lot and I hope to have a better selection of flowers over a longer period of time next year.

Cut Flowers – Why are British flowers the bees knees?

Tags

cut flowers, Sarah Raven, The Real Cut Flower Company, Wiggly Wigglers

I was inspired to grow my own cut flowers this year by the gardener, florist and TV presenter Sarah Raven. I’ve never really liked a lot of the flowers available from florists and the arrangements feel too stylised, I much prefer a more natural look and flowers that are in season. I know the red rose is the symbol of love but I would much prefer a bunch of Cornish sweetly scented Narcissi for Valentine’s Day.

My local supermarket had started to sell more traditional British flowers and I would look at the varieties on offer and think I could grow them. So I did.

I’ve had flowers to cut for the house since the end of May and I still have some going strong. I’ve grown sweetpeas, nigella, cosmos, sunflowers, didiscus, dahlias, cornflowers, calendula and antirrhinums. All, apart from the dahlias were raised from seed.

I’ve recently read about the impact cut flower production has in parts of Africa and South America where flowers are grown to supply the European flower industry. These are often countries where fertile land for food production and water are in short supply, regulations on chemicals usage are not as strict as in the EU and growing large scale monocultures is affecting biodiversity and all of this to produce a luxury purchase – a bunch of flowers. The Ecologist has an interesting article entitled Green Living- Behind the Brand – Cut Flowers if you are interested in reading more.

There are an increasing number of British cut flower growers such as Wiggly Wigglers and The Real Cut Flower Company and more supermarkets are stocking British grown cut flowers but if you’ve got a patch of garden or an allotment why not grow some of your own. Not only will you have the pleasure of picking your own flowers but there won’t be any airmiles, hopefully no chemicals and insects will love them too. I will post at a later date the tips I’ve learnt this year and varieties I would recommend.