Flowers bring delight but the question of where to buy them can be tricky

Cut flowers inspire emotions

Cut flowers can say so much. The can bring joy to the recipient when they are feeling down.

They can say ‘I love you’, I’m thinking of you’ ‘congratulations’ or get well soon’.

They are so versatile in the expressions but in some cases, they have to travel so far to say it.

In our interconnected world, they may have to travel thousands of miles to get to your door.

The Netherlands is a big centre for cut flowers, with thousands being bought there each day and then sent out to their destinations.

In the case of the UK, this would be a matter of several hundred miles but with so much demand for flowers that are out-of-season in the northern hemisphere, growing them in Europe is costly both in terms of the finances involved in heating greenhouses but also in the energy needed to do so, much of which could well come from fossil fuels.

In a global economy, there is the chance to go further afield to countries that have a natural heat, such as Kenya, which has become a centre for growing flowers that can be exported to the markets of Europe.

But the downside to this solution is the air miles involved, with the flowers having to travel thousands of miles to get to their destination. While it is lovely to have the flowers, is the cost involved getting too great?

It's a simple question... or is it?

On the face of it, that seems a simple question. Just buying flowers that are in season in the part of the world where you are reduces the air miles involved. But of course, the economies of the countries where the flowers come from have grown to rely on the sales to provide people with jobs and homes, so as ever, it is not as simple as all that.

One of the options we have discovered is to buy flowers that can continue to grow, so when we recently bought some flowers to mark the grave of a much-loved relative, we opted for a display that came ‘on-the-bulb’.

The selection of tulips, which were either in full bloom, or poised to do so within a day or two, came beautifully presented as a posy and when the time came to mark the grave, we were able to take the option of planting them. This meant that as they die off, the plants could naturally retreat back into the soil, hopefully to flower again next year.

It’s the ideal way to recycle in the natural world and the way Mother Nature has done for eons.

Aiming to tick the right boxes

While there is a place to bring produce from outside the area, it’s also important to support growers close to home, so we were delighted to discover Bracken and Bloom Flower Farm, which is close to the Devon, Somerset and Dorset border.

We left the choice of flowers to them to make the most of the seasonal blooms, the bouquet arrived beautifully wrapped in recyclable materials, our purchase supported a small business and they only had to travel a few miles.

On this occasion, the purchase ticked all the right boxes.

Further reading:

To read more about the flower markets of The Netherlands, click here. 

To read more about the flower industry in Kenya and all that it provides for the people it employs, click here. 

And to see more about Bracken and Bloom Flower Farm, click here or find them on Facebook.