Autumn equinox: flowers during chemotherapy

As it's the autumn equinox today, I thought I'd postpone the last instalment of the Florist on Tour to share autumnal flowers from last week.

It is now estimated that one in two of us born after 1960 will get cancer at some point in our lifetime. It's a sobering thought, which feels more real if you have loved ones with cancer. In the last few years, it seems like more people I know have had the disease, and it has hit young friends as well as older relatives. In my work at a hospice, I hear stories about the effect cancer has on people's lives - those bereaved as a result of it, and those currently dealing with their own or their loved ones'.

So when I was asked to do flowers for someone whose cancer treatment has affected their sense of taste and smell, leaving them unable to enjoy the sweet things they used to - simple pleasures such as cake, biscuits, and floral scents - I was only too willing. I did "roast dinner" flowers: a pumpkin from a local allotment, filled with my sage and rosemary, autumnal-hued peony leaves, and non-scented flowers. There were asters, sedum, and a single dahlia that have all flowered again this year, and hypericum from Blooming Green. I have to thank Simon Lycett for the tip about peony foliage - I have never thought to use it before.

I delivered them on a beautiful, hot day last week, and warned that they probably wouldn't last long - the combination of vegetables (fruit and veg give off ethylene, which speeds up the flower-wilting process) and hot weather wasn't helpful. But they were gladly received, and smelled without any horrible nausea. On one of the hottest days of the year, we all craved a roast dinner.

Simple pleasures. They don't cure cancer, unfortunately. But sometimes they are all we can turn to, to help to ease us through the rubbish that life throws at some of us.

If you have or care for someone with cancer, there is advice available here. And if things feel really difficult, the Samaritans are available 24 hours a day on the phone number 116 123 if you are in the UK.

British Flowers Week: A British flowers tea party

It was wonderful to fill up five buckets with flowers I've grown. Pink alliums, cornflower-blue cornflowers, strongly-scented roses...summer is well and truly here. I had to get the sprinkler out as the grass and shrubs were so parched - we've had a bit of drizzle the last few days, but it's so warm, it barely waters the plants before it evaporates.

I was so pleased to include my Bowl of Beauty peonies - they aren't scented, but they are showstoppers! This was the first one to open - if you are cutting yours, cut them just before they get to this stage.

The sixth bucket was filled with claret astrantia, drooping purple alliums, and blue-purple penstemon from Zest and white peonies from Pratley at New Covent Garden Market. You could tell it was British Flowers Week and wedding season, as the market was really buzzy when I went on Thursday, even though I went quite late (8am).

It was lovely to see a sea of Rosebie Morton British-grown roses at Zest.

I had a few flowers to do for a house party and so many left over, I was able to take some to a friend who I haven't seen for a year, and leave a couple of lonely bouquets on trains and train stations.

It was a great excuse to use a tea set (more on that on Alice Day, on the 4th of July) and to get a piece of rainbow cake from Cloud 9 in Brighton!

The philadelphus is looking gorgeous, and when I opened the door in the morning, I was hit with the smell of orange blossom (hence its common name, mock orange). So this Tiptree jar was perfect for a white posy of philadelphus, ammi, hesperis and alliums.

I have some Apollo irises that are a sunny yellow colour, and some orange and cream osteospermum. Not quite apricot, but this jar would have to do - and the peachy rose sat in one of many jars that I collect from people when they go out for scones!

The next date in your diary: Lonely Bouquet Day this Sunday, and an excuse to carry on using homegrown flowers!

Pensiveness and peonies

I did two very special "Sorry you're leaving"/"Good luck" gifts this week. I had planned to use forget-me-nots (for obvious reasons) and cowslips for pensiveness, but couldn't get hold of either. In the end, I used new season Sarah Bernhardt peonies, which start off like this...

Before opening a little...

And eventually look like this when fully open. They smell incredible, and they are so fluffy I just want to stroke them like a rabbit!

There were also cerise stocks, green hypericum berries and lilac freesias from the market.

Mixed up with lots of flowers from the garden: the first white, red and peach garden roses, dainty aquilegia, including the exquisite 'Nora Barlow' from Higgledy Garden (which has finally flowered after I sowed the seeds twenty months ago!), lavender 'Folgate', pittosporum 'Oliver Twist', scented white hesperis (a.k.a. sweet rocket - these are autumn-sown from seeds, which I got at the Hardy Cottage Garden Plants stand at the Wisley show), alliums in purple and white, osteospermum, and delicious-smelling herbs such as lemon verbena.

There was plenty to make two similar-but-different bouquets, in reused glass jars.

They were delivered on the bus, in the much-needed sunshine. They went to two surprised lecturers, who seemed happy with them and didn't need cowslips in order to be thoughtful!

British Summer Time

I accidentally set my alarm for 6.20 this morning, instead of 7.20 - I forgot it was so clever it would add the extra hour by itself! It was good to get an early start on my uni work, but it's a shame the weather is so gloomy and rainy outside.

But it is now British Summer Time. Which means longer, brighter evenings, and eventually more of this: buckets of colourful, scented flowers from the garden!

British Flowers Week: Gallantry in Postman's Park

When I thought about the British flowers that would be available for British Flowers Week, a few leapt out for me: peonies and Sweet Williams.

British peonies are only available for a short time in the early summer, but they are so popular all year round, particularly for weddings. I once worked for a florist who would buy imported (from New Zealand) red peonies for Christmas bouquets, just because she liked them so much. They were beautiful and understandably expensive, but I thought it was madness to order them, especially as it would teach customers that it was reasonable to expect peonies in December in London.

It's interesting that they are so popular for weddings as their symbolic meaning is bashful shame. I guess, like lavender, they are too beautiful and sweetly scented for people to mind what they have represented in the past.

Sweet Williams are beautiful flowers, with a sweet, clove scent. They are from the dianthus family, like carnations and pinks. Sweet Williams and pinks were both the subject of special photoshoots organised by the market and some very talented florists.

Sweet Williams symbolise gallantry, but also finesse and dexterity. It's gallantry that I thought of as I planned to create a floral spray (like a funeral sheaf) to photograph in Postman's Park. I ordered the Sweet Williams from Tregothnan and bought the peonies from the market.

Postman's Park is in the City, close to St Paul's Cathedral and not far from Cannon Street and Blackfriars train stations. My friend Francesca took me there years ago when we had one of those casual, walk-around-town days. It's a lovely green space, usually filled with people sitting on one of the many benches. It got its name from the postal workers who worked nearby, and who would take their breaks there.

Once we got to the artist G. F. Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, I realised I had seen the park before (on screen, at least) in the film Closer. Closer is one of my favourite London-set films. It's quite vicious and miserable at times, but tender and funny at others, as you'd expect from Mike Nichols, the director of The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Watts's Memorial was based on the artist's suggestion for a gallery to commemorate people who had sacrificed their own lives trying to save someone else. The idea wasn't taken up, so he made the gallery himself, using ceramic tablets inscribed with the name of each person and details of the heroic act that killed them. Each tablet is so beautiful and there is something touching and haunting about the language used. For example, Henry James Bristow, an eight-year-old boy, "Saved his little sister's life by tearing off her flaming clothes but caught fire himself and died of burns and shock". There are a few sisters and brothers who tried to save their siblings, but also people who tried to save strangers, neighbours and colleagues. If you ever need a reminder of the potential kindness and selflessness of people, visit this memorial.

So for British Flowers Week, I made a floral spray using Sweet Williams for gallantry, Sarah Bernhardt peonies (just because they were in season and would add impact), alchemilla mollis and eucalyptus which both symbolise protection, cornflowers which stand for delicacy, rosemary for remembrance, poppy seed heads (the flowers represent consolation) and hazel for reconciliation. When I took the photos, I saw that someone had left a red rose there.

I also made a lonely bouquet with William Shakespeare 2000 roses, a peony, Sweet Williams, poppy seed heads and alchemilla. I left it under Alice Ayres.