British Flowers Week 2018: Sweet peas

British Flowers Week starts today, so I thought I'd try to post every day this week. Starting off with a small gardening victory.

I met up with Sara from My Flower Patch and her husband when they came to London for a few days back in March. It was snowing and cold so we found a nice tapas restaurant in Bloomsbury and stayed there in the warm all afternoon. She told me about the planning and organising ahead of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show - Sara is a member of Flowers From The Farm and they had their first stand at the show in May. I didn't envy her - it sounded like so much hard work. It paid off in the end as they won a gold medal!

When Sara asked me what I was growing this year, I told her I'd planned to sow sweet peas but I had left it too late. She told me a tip (which I think Gill Hodgson, who founded Flowers from the Farm, had passed on to her) which was to sow them in the small pots you get from a takeaway, on damp kitchen paper or cotton wool pads, and keep them indoors until they germinate. She said if I was lucky I would have flowers in September!

So the week after that, I washed all the pots after a Friday night thali from the local Sri Lankan grocery, I lay folded strips of kitchen paper inside each one, added a few drops of water so they were damp, and spaced out a few sweet pea seeds inside every pot. Then put the lids on and placed them on a window sill above a radiator. I checked them each day, and if they were drying up I added a few more drops of water. It was kind of like growing cress on blotting paper at school, except these were covered. And I never got excited about eating cress, whereas I do get excited about cutting sweet peas for a vase.

After a week, most of the seeds had germinated. I planted them in small, tall pots.

Fast forward three months and I have my first sweet peas flowering! The stems are a bit stumpy; unlike the amazing long stems I've grown before from winter sowings.

But they're pretty and they smell gorgeous.

The day after Helen died, I took some flowers round for her parents and nieces. I had cut some hellebores, apple mint, and bluebells from the garden and bought British sweet peas, narcissi, and tulips. I hoped the gentle scent would be comforting and not overwhelming or even irritating. Fortunately, Helen's mother said it was nice to have flowers again because they'd had to throw out the wilted ones which were given when Helen was ill.

It's hard to find the motivation to do things when you're troubled or when you're grieving. When I visited Helen's parents after the funeral, her mother told me that she didn't feel like gardening, and I could really empathise. I asked if she'd like some plants because I had too many, and she said OK. So the next time I went round, I took some sweet peas and cosmos. I went round last week and saw the sweet peas are in a beautiful homemade wigwam, and the cosmos are in the flower bed. Busy Lizzies are planted up in containers hanging from the fence, and the garden is looking lovely and loved. We talked about Helen and there's sadness and anger and confusion and guilt. But there's tenderness and tiny pieces of joy as well.

Sweet peas mean delicate pleasures in the Victorian language of flowers, but I've just seen that they also symbolise departure. This feels especially poignant this year. I also have another friend in mind - I don't want to name them in case they don't want me to, but I know they're going through a hard time now and sweet peas are special flowers for them.

For all of the healing these flowers can bring, I'm glad I managed to grow them. So thank you for the nudge, Sara.

British flowers from Plantpassion

I've mentioned Claire from Plantpassion before - she was one of the hardworking flower growers at the Flowers from the Farm stand at Hampton Court Flower Show this year, showcasing some of the best British flowers of the summer. I visited her flower farm in spring, but it was raining by the time I thought to take photos of her field, and I had to leave when the kind florist who was giving me a lift to the train station was leaving!

Claire's been on a photography course with Emma Davies, and she sent me a lovely photo of her field now. It's looking wonderful!

Of course when I went in spring it was full of different flowers - tulips in all sorts of colours, cerinthe, early cornflowers, and loads of apple mint. I did take photos in the polytunnel, and I was amazed by all of the dahlia pots (there were many more than the ones in this photo)...looking at the recent photo of the field, I can see Claire's hard work has paid off!

There were ranunculus, more cornflowers, and anemones.

And giant ammi.

There were also plenty of seedlings - chrysanthemums, gladioli, and more.

And lots of herbs.

If you live in Surrey, Claire's farm is well worth a visit, especially if you are a florist or you are planning to do flowers for an event. You'll find gorgeous flowers that you might not find elsewhere, and a grower with more than twenty years' experience in horticulture. Claire is ever so friendly too, which is a bonus! She will be holding an open afternoon on Sunday 21 September, so you can see the flowers in the flesh.

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2014: Flowers from the Farm

As I mentioned in my last post, Flowers from the Farm is a network of flower growers in the UK, who have their first display at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show this year.

Some have small plots in a garden and some big farms, but they are all passionate about growing flowers and foliage that local people can use rather than importing flowers from another country or even another continent. In the same way that we've gradually been getting the message about buying local, seasonal food - Kent strawberries in June rather than November imports from Spain or China - the network hopes that we will also get the message about buying seasonal, local flowers. Many others promote this idea of using local, seasonal flowers too (see The Lonely Bouquet ethos).

As well as the air miles and the carbon emissions involved, there is also the freshness of the flowers to consider. Sometimes flowers spend days being transported from one country to Holland for the flower auction, and then transported to Britain. There are chemicals used to preserve them, but preserved or not, imported flowers are sometimes several days old by the time they get to the customer. The chemicals and the time factor mean that if you hold the flowers up to your nose, they are less likely to be scented. For instance, I had no idea that phlox was sweetly scented until I started growing my own. There's British phlox in the photo below, along with British snapdragons (antirrhinums) which are also scented sometimes.

There's also an ethical dilemma with flowers produced in conditions that would cause an outcry in they happened at a place of work in the UK. I think this could be helped through legislation and transparency, such as including the provenance of every wrap and box of flowers on the packaging, but I don't know if this will change unless customers demand it. I feel as though market forces place more value on the product and the cost rather than the people and environmental factors.

Back to the Hampton Court show - you can find Flowers from the Farm in the Roses and Floristry marquee, at the opposite end of the tent to the floristry theatre (stand RF3). There will be Flowers from the Farm members at the stand, happy to talk to you about the beautiful blooms on display and about the work they do.

When I visited on Tuesday I saw Claire from Plantpassion, who I mentioned yesterday, whose sweet peas and alliums, amongst other flowers, were included in the display. I met Frances from Moat Farm Flowers and Fiona from Purple Daisy Flowers for the first time. I just missed Sara from The Handpicked Flower Company, who has just started her own flower farm but was able to contribute some of her flowers, including delicate Gypsophila 'Covent Garden', to the display. Great work for a new grower! If you follow #Britishflowers hour on Twitter on Monday nights, you'll have seen Sara hosting some nights, alternating with another Sara (Willman, of My Flower Patch, who supplied some gorgeous grasses as well as flowers).

All of the pictures in this post are my photos of the display, but photos don't really do it justice, so if you are lucky enough to be visiting the show this year, do go and see it for yourself. When I went, they had a posy of scented sweet peas at hand for people to smell. If you're not used to scented flowers, as I hadn't been (apart from roses and hyacinths) until a few years ago, then the first time you smell sweet peas, you are likely to fall in love with them!

There was such an abundance of flowers, it was hard to know where to look first! There were scented beauties such as roses (including a mystery rose - which turned out to be 'Elizabeth Harkness', grown by Frances Boscawen), sweet peas and stocks, showstopping lupins (which were Paula Baxter's), sunflowers and one of Sara Willman's artichoke flowers, and delicate prettiness in the form of dill, ammi and cosmos. There were also some of this year's popular flowers used in the gardens and displays: achillea, crocosmia, echinops and eryngium.

You can see a detailed list of the flowers used for each arrangement here. There is also a list of growers who contributed to the display, which I'll copy here. Next time you need British flowers, you know where to look!

Arrangements created by:

• Martin, Emma and Kay - Martin and the Magpie Flowers 

Willow horse supplied by:

• Jo Hammond - Basketry and Willowcraft

Circus caravan supplied by:

• David Clark - Hillcrest Nurseries

Flowers supplied by:

• Sheila Hume – Blue Hen Flowers
• Emily Rae – Fletchling Flowers
• Cel Robertson – Forever Green Flower Company
• Frances Boscawen – Moat Farm Flowers
• Fiona Ringwood – Purple Daisy Flowers

With additional seasonal flowers provided by:

• Juliet Bennet – Babylon Flowers
• Rachel Petherham – Catkin Flowers
• Julia Bigham – Farm Flowers
• Rachel Siegfried - Green and Gorgeous
• Heather Clark – Green Cottage Flowers
• Sara Davison – The Handpicked Flower Company
• David and Julie Clark – Hillcrest Nurseries Cut Flower Garden
• Sue & Wendy – Holme Flowers
• Paula Baxter – Mill Pond Flower Farm
• Melinda Newbery – Little Strode Flower Farm
• Sara Willman – My Flower Patch
• Claire Brown – Plantpassion

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2014: Blue is the warmest colour

I visited the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show yesterday on a day that started off with bright, warm sunshine, but ended up with a very cold thunderstorm. Having seen the weather forecast, I thought it best to visit the gardens first, and then go for lunch when the rain started. As the rain was off and on for the rest of the day, I spent a lot of time taking photos under an umbrella. Occasionally, there was even beauty to be found when the umbrella matched the garden!

This is the gold-winning Vestra Wealth's Vista by Paul Martin. Such a beautiful garden with cool blues and whites but warm textures. There were tall showstoppers such as agapanthus, angelica and hydrangea, and lower-level beauties like the silver-leafed Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' (which I also spotted in Claire from Plantpassion's flower farm earlier this year).

I was intrigued by the NSPCC Legacy Garden by Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith. As well as having a beautiful design, gorgeous plants, cute toys (hello Peppa Pig!) and messages from children in jars, it featured a timeline spanning the charity's 130 year history. 

I loved the prettiness of the 1920s-inspired herbs, pink roses and achillea (a very popular flower in gardens and displays this year), the vibrancy of the 1970s-inspired bright dahlias, snapdragons and kniphofia (red hot pokers), and the sophisticated blues and purples of the 2014 agastache, agapanthus (another popular flower) and Geranium 'Rozanne'. 

I'm fairly sure Geranium 'Rozanne' was in the gold-winning Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants display. You can see it here with Escallonia 'Golden Carpet', bred by Neil Alcock.

Essence of Australia by Jim Fogarty won a gold medal and best show garden, and featured, as you might expect, lots of blue-green eucalyptus. I'm so used to using it in floristry that I forgot I first heard about the foliage as a child, when I learnt that pandas eat bamboo and koalas eat eucalyptus (but I never learnt about British trees or flowers, which was a shame).

Untying the Knot: The Bounceback Foundation Garden by Frederic Whyte won a silver medal. It has a gorgeous colour scheme that shows how to warm up blues and purples by contrasting them with sunny oranges. There were lupins, echinops and eryngium thistles, achillea and lavender.

Lavender was used in many gardens, and Downderry has a beautiful, gold-winning display again in the Floral Marquee. I overheard someone there saying that one variety had sold out because it was exclusive to their nursery (I assume it was one of the unusual, pretty pink or lilac varieties), so make sure you visit the stand early if you want the best selection to choose from!

Finally, a taster (with more to come later) of the Flowers from the Farm stand in the Roses and Floristry Marquee. This was their first year displaying at Hampton Court and, with the help of their network of flower growers and the florist Martin and the Magpie, they put together a stunning display.