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Buckets of cut flowers at Cotswold Country Flowers

Why British flowers?

Isn’t it time we thought about flowers as we increasingly do about food: valuing seasonal, fresh, locally grown, unusual varieties over mass imports?

At Flowers from the Farm, we think so.

Your first reaction on receiving a bouquet of flowers is, naturally enough, to bury your nose in them and to inhale. Delicious scent is what we all expect but all too often we are disappointed. This is because most commercial flowers will have been bred to withstand the rigours of international shipping and mass production rather than to possess intoxicating fragrance. Today, an estimated 90% of the flowers sold through florists, supermarkets and wholesalers are imported not just from Holland but flown in from growers as far afield as Ecuador, Colombia, Kenya and even Ethiopia.

Now, dip your nose into a beautiful bouquet of fresh cut flowers grown by your local British flower farmer, and the experience is altogether different. You will be enveloped in a heady concoction of delicious fragrances, charmed by their natural, soft beauty and fascinated by their variety. When you see or smell a British flower bouquet, you can be transported by fond, childhood memories of flower-filled gardens.

Flowers grown by your local flower farmer will be freshly picked and locally delivered, giving you flowers as fresh as possible and saving thousands of travel miles. Each individual flower will have the natural, unique, informal beauty that can only come from small-scale, local production. Your local flower farmer grows with the seasons and is motivated by the excitement of harvesting the first of the sweet peas, dahlias, garden roses, anemones, larkspur, snapdragons and cornflowers rather than by predictable, year-round crops.

Sensational and scented

A posy of freshly cut sweet peas in shades of pink, white and purple, tied with a simple ribbon stand in a jar on top of a rough stone wall. Photo: Compton Garden Flowers.

Perfumed and perfect: summer sweet peas.

A bucket of British cut flowers packed full of delicate varieites in blues and pinks: cornflowers, strawflowers, scabious, blue alkanet, the tiny daisy form of ammobium Winged Devil, and the blue thistleheads of sea holly. Photo: Ravenshill Flowers

Traditional and delicate country garden varieties.

Pam of Quirky Flowers cuts buckets of towering blue delphiniums on her Staffordshire flower farm with the rolling hills of the local countryside in the background.

Grown with care not chemicals.

6 reasons to buy British flowers

All flowers are lovely and there’s room in the world for all of them. So why should you seek out your local flower farmer to buy locally produced blooms, growing in their natural season?

Tread lightly on the planet

Our members grow mainly outdoors without additonal light or heat and choose flowers that love their particular growing conditions. Picked fresh from the flower plot and arranged for you, there is no need for our flower farmers to extend vase life with chemicals. Our members care for their soil, enrich the land, create food for bees and butterflies and generate rich habitats for soil microbes, inverterbrates and everything that depends on them.

Reduce flower miles

British flowers travel a fraction of the miles covered by their imported cousins. People talk of ‘Dutch flowers’ but while The Netherlands does grow flower crops its flower auctions are a relay for flowers grown across Europe as well as for those air-freighted thousands of miles from South America, Africa and Asia. Approximately 86% of the UK cut flower market is currently made up of imports.

Character and charm

We don’t choose our flowers because they’ll produce a predictable acre of identical blooms. We grow small quantities of a large number of varieties because we think they do something wonderful to arrangements. Stems may wiggle and twist, tendrils may reach and sprawl and this natural character is exactly why we love them. We grow flowers to make you say “ooooh!”.

Buy local

By supporting your local flower grower, you’re also supporting your local ecology and economy. Locally grown flowers can be picked at the perfect stage straight into water and don’t have to travel dry through the commercial supply chain, so will reach you almost as fresh as those you’d pick directly from your garden, and without the need to wrap them in plastic.

Bring the outdoors in

Using the best cut flowers which the UK season provides, our members’ bouquets, bunches and buckets bring a garden into each and every vase. Enjoy the seasonal bounty at close quarters and don’t forget to inhale the intoxicating scents!

Because you're a flower lover

If you love flowers, you’ll love Flowers from the Farm and the beautiful blooms its members produce: flowers that relax in a vase rather than stand stiffly to attention, which look and smell divine and which you’ll struggle to find in the commercial supply chain. Flowers that tell stories, flowers just for you.

More about British flowers

We want to get more British grown blooms back into vases across the country. Find out more about UK seasonality and why buying local is always a good idea.

A seasonal summer wedding bouquet of British flowers by Pear Tree House Flowers. Peach dahlias with love in a mist for something blue, lavender for gorgeous perfume, grasses and eucalyptus for texture. Photo: RD Photography.

Reduce your carbon footprint by choosing locally grown flowers

Rebecca Swinn and Anglea Coulton explain how the carbon footprint of a bouquet bought from your local flower farmer is likely to compare with that of an imported bunch.

Rachel of Green and Gorgeous arranges freshly cut British flowers in a large ceramic urn.

Discover the beauty of British blooms through our gallery

Watch the seasons turn with our ever-changing array of sensational flowers and fabulous foliage in this gallery of images from Flowers from the Farm members.