Where do your flowers grow?
There’s been a cut-flower industry – and controversy over flowers out of season – since at least Roman times. The philosopher Seneca wrote: ‘Do not men live contrary to nature who crave roses in winter or seek to raise spring flowers like a lily by means of hot-water heaters and artificial changes of temperature?’
Nowadays, we do not seem to worry overmuch about the ethics of demanding roses in February and carnations all the year round. To prompt us to consider some complex issues regarding how, where and when we source the flowers we bring into our houses – and to celebrate their history and beauty – the Garden Museum has put together an unusual exhibition on the theme Floriculture: Flowers, Love And Money.
Britain’s love affair with cut flowers gathered pace under the Victorians, who were mad about flowers, plants and gardens. Cultured young ladies were taught botanical painting, flower arranging and the art of making nosegays. To satisfy the passion for flowers, a wholesale flower market was built in Covent Garden in 1872. This was where the flower girls bought their sweet violets to sell on the streets. By the late 1850s the first flower shops were opening. The expanding rail network was connecting London with the flower farms, and by 1929, 20 tonnes of flowers were being taken by train to London each day.
In the 1970s the supermarkets entered the game and soon dominated the market: 70 per cent of all the flowers we now buy in the UK come from supermarkets.
Surrey lavender field
Cut flowers are very big business – in the UK we spend £2.2bn on them every year. Top sellers are roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, tulips and gerbera. Many come from the Netherlands or, via Dutch flower auctions, from Africa and South America.
The arguments for and against importing flowers are complex and finely balanced. On the positive side, Kenya, for example, has the ideal climate for growing cut flowers, and it is claimed that flying flowers from Kenya generates less than 20 per cent of the CO2 needed to grow them in hothouses in the Netherlands. Fairtrade flower farms pay decent wages and invest in local communities.
On the negative side, on non-fairtrade farms wages are often low, monoculture damages biodiversity, and the use of pesticides banned in Europe wipes out beneficial insects as well as pests, and causes health problems in workers.
One flower we still excel at growing in Britain is the daffodil – we’re the world’s largest producer and export flowers and bulbs all over the world.
At home, the market is declining, and one former grower on the Scilly Isles comments: ‘When it costs you £15 in heating, packaging and labour to produce a box of daffodils and a supermarket pays you £12.50 for it, then you’re not going to do it for very long’.
She says that people have no notion of the seasons any more and just want a cheap bunch of flowers.
Ninety per cent of the flowers we buy come from abroad. We all have a role in redressing this. The UK cut-flower industry needs our encouragement – and our custom. There is a movement now for buying food that is seasonal and locally grown. We should extend this to cut flowers.
I am running out of words, but there is just space to say that there are paintings as well as polemic in this fascinating exhibition, among them fine works by Duncan Grant, Cedric Morris and Stanley Spencer.
A lovely shop and an accoladewinning cafe will round off a stimulating visit.
Floriculture: Flowers, Love And Money is on until 28 April 2013 at the Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1: 020-7401 8865; www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
Reaching the top of the waiting list and getting your first allotment is both thrilling and daunting for the novice gardener. The new Allotment Handbook, subtitled ‘The beginners’ guide to growing crops in a small place’, by garden writer, allotment holder and beekeeper Simon Akeroyd, provides advice on getting the preparation and planning right in order to enjoy some well-earned harvests down the line.
Clearing the plot, if it’s overgrown, of rubbish, broken glass, brambles and perennial weeds, digging over and levelling the site and improving the soil are all covered in detail.
Easy-to-follow instructions, reinforced with lots of photographs, guide the reader through some foolproof projects such as making raised beds, compost bins and a cold frame. There’s thorough coverage of all the basics and some quirkier advice on providing seating to encourage socialising, and stamping one’s individuality on the plot. This is an excellent primer for the eager beginner – clear and comprehensive and extremely well illustrated.
Allotment Handbook by Simon Akeroyd is published by Dorling Kindersley, priced £14.99: www.dk.com
Viola odorata, the sweet violet, has delicately scented violet-blue flowers from February to March. It flourishes in moist, welldrained soil in a shady woodland garden or border, and makes gorgeous little posies. £6.99: www.crocus.co.uk
Nowadays, we do not seem to worry overmuch about the ethics of demanding roses in February and carnations all the year round. To prompt us to consider some complex issues regarding how, where and when we source the flowers we bring into our houses – and to celebrate their history and beauty – the Garden Museum has put together an unusual exhibition on the theme Floriculture: Flowers, Love And Money.
Britain’s love affair with cut flowers gathered pace under the Victorians, who were mad about flowers, plants and gardens. Cultured young ladies were taught botanical painting, flower arranging and the art of making nosegays. To satisfy the passion for flowers, a wholesale flower market was built in Covent Garden in 1872. This was where the flower girls bought their sweet violets to sell on the streets. By the late 1850s the first flower shops were opening. The expanding rail network was connecting London with the flower farms, and by 1929, 20 tonnes of flowers were being taken by train to London each day.
In the 1970s the supermarkets entered the game and soon dominated the market: 70 per cent of all the flowers we now buy in the UK come from supermarkets.
Surrey lavender fieldCut flowers are very big business – in the UK we spend £2.2bn on them every year. Top sellers are roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, tulips and gerbera. Many come from the Netherlands or, via Dutch flower auctions, from Africa and South America.
The arguments for and against importing flowers are complex and finely balanced. On the positive side, Kenya, for example, has the ideal climate for growing cut flowers, and it is claimed that flying flowers from Kenya generates less than 20 per cent of the CO2 needed to grow them in hothouses in the Netherlands. Fairtrade flower farms pay decent wages and invest in local communities.
On the negative side, on non-fairtrade farms wages are often low, monoculture damages biodiversity, and the use of pesticides banned in Europe wipes out beneficial insects as well as pests, and causes health problems in workers.
One flower we still excel at growing in Britain is the daffodil – we’re the world’s largest producer and export flowers and bulbs all over the world.
At home, the market is declining, and one former grower on the Scilly Isles comments: ‘When it costs you £15 in heating, packaging and labour to produce a box of daffodils and a supermarket pays you £12.50 for it, then you’re not going to do it for very long’.
She says that people have no notion of the seasons any more and just want a cheap bunch of flowers.
Ninety per cent of the flowers we buy come from abroad. We all have a role in redressing this. The UK cut-flower industry needs our encouragement – and our custom. There is a movement now for buying food that is seasonal and locally grown. We should extend this to cut flowers.
I am running out of words, but there is just space to say that there are paintings as well as polemic in this fascinating exhibition, among them fine works by Duncan Grant, Cedric Morris and Stanley Spencer.
A lovely shop and an accoladewinning cafe will round off a stimulating visit.
Floriculture: Flowers, Love And Money is on until 28 April 2013 at the Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1: 020-7401 8865; www.gardenmuseum.org.uk
How to run an allotment
Reaching the top of the waiting list and getting your first allotment is both thrilling and daunting for the novice gardener. The new Allotment Handbook, subtitled ‘The beginners’ guide to growing crops in a small place’, by garden writer, allotment holder and beekeeper Simon Akeroyd, provides advice on getting the preparation and planning right in order to enjoy some well-earned harvests down the line. Clearing the plot, if it’s overgrown, of rubbish, broken glass, brambles and perennial weeds, digging over and levelling the site and improving the soil are all covered in detail.
Easy-to-follow instructions, reinforced with lots of photographs, guide the reader through some foolproof projects such as making raised beds, compost bins and a cold frame. There’s thorough coverage of all the basics and some quirkier advice on providing seating to encourage socialising, and stamping one’s individuality on the plot. This is an excellent primer for the eager beginner – clear and comprehensive and extremely well illustrated.
Allotment Handbook by Simon Akeroyd is published by Dorling Kindersley, priced £14.99: www.dk.com
