British Flowers, The Chelsea 2015 Edition Part 2

"Seasonality. 

It's a word we know, and most of us understand but in a world where we can pretty much get anything at any time if the year, it's hard to remember that the vast majority of things that are grown, are only available for a limited time in the year. It's somewhat bizarre that strawberries can be bought at Christmas and asparagus at any other time than mid May to June is little short of sacrilege, and yet they are both pretty much available all year round. 

But if you've eaten strawberries at Christmas, you'll know they pale into nothingness in comparison to the deep sunfilled sweetness of a strawberry picked and eaten in mid summer. They lack taste, fragrance and their texture is usually too hard or too soft but they're strawberries out of season and so they are bought,with little thought of how they arrived or from where.

So what does this have to do with flowers or RHS Chelsea? 

Well every year the floral marquee at RHS Chelsea is filled with the most spectacular displays from our amazing nurseries and growers from all across the UK. There are everything from stunning narcissi, to tulips and hyacinths and alliums-all plants and flowers you would expect to see within a six week window at either end of the show week. There is always a strawberry display that you can smell long before you can see it. The bulb companies show off their spring and early summer flowerers whilst the larger nurseries show what they have new for the year ahead. It's an amazing, inspiring, fragrant pavilion that you know you're entering by the fanfare of scents and colours that meet you as you enter, and I for one have been rendered speechless by the beauty of the exhibits on more than one occasion. It can be emotional, particularly when you understand the pressure these growers put onto themselves to produce the perfect bloom, the perfect plant. 

At a nursery I formerly worked at we called it the Chelsea dance. Plants being taken from sun, to shade, from heat to cool and back again, often all in the space of a day,to ensure they were in perfect condition for the day they finally went to the show ground. Working 18-20 hour days in the run up to the show is normal and a culmination of months of preparation and specialist growing. As a grower it's exciting and challenging and although the pressure was huge, and everyone says that's my last year, never again, if I'm honest I miss it. 

The RHS proudly announced last year that 95% of the Chelsea Floral Marquee was British grown. The pedants among us might have said why not 100% but there are a few stands where clearly there are going to be some foreign grown plants, such as the quite incredible South African and Carribean stands that are so inspirational and educational. 

So with all this being really at the heart of what the Floral Marquee is about, beautifully, mainly seasonal, British produced plants that speak of our horticultural heritage, you would hope that the foral displays produced by Interflora who are bringing us a stand that by design is about the Britishness of garden parties, drinking tea and presumably being surrounded by quintessentially British gardens, would want to support the British flower industry as it rises like a Phoenix from its own ashes, reinventing itself all across the country, and bringing us those perfect early summer blooms. Sweet Williams, one of the British flower growers staples, beautiful scented pinks, Larkspur, Ammi, Geums, Sweet Peas......the list goes on, are all available here and now. 

But instead they chose to try to source Paeonias, Roses, Stocks and Allium Gadiator from UK growers whilst sourcing what else was needed from Holland, but failed to check these would be available or, and more importantly, order the plants with plenty of warning so that the Chelsea Dance could begin. The reality of the stand is that less than 20% was ever going to be British grown and today I estimate that it is far, far less than that. If Marks and Spencer could see that they would need to work with UK growers last year so that their paeonias were ready in time for the show, how on earth did Interflora not look to do the same?  To check that there was a large scale producer of English roses as cut blooms might have been wise, not to mention ensuring that the required Allium variety was grown commercially, and it's horrifying to be in the knowledge that this was never done. No Chelsea garden's planting is set in stone until the day it is finished for this reason precisely and to take into account that things go wrong, so why would the designers involved with the Interflora stand not have used that thinking as they were designing? 

And sadly the answer is a lack of understanding or care for seasonality. An expectation that they can have what they want, when they want it, regardless of the cost to the environment or the industry which they are snubbing. Hinting that they felt let down by the UK industry when they actually hadn't even engaged with them, but just gone through a wholesaler, is far from being acceptable but the saddest part is their lack of understanding of the business in which they are set and its dependence on the seasons and the way it regularly reinvents itself when needed due to the vagaries of the British weather and the pressures of the market. And so they will present a stand tomorrow with un scented Carnations from South Anerica whilst next to them are Whetman's Pinks with their stunning display that not only looks like English summer but smells of it too, bringing true seasonality and excellent nurserymanship to the Floral Marquee.

Our British flower industry is blooming, but it needs support from the people who are at the centre of the flower industry as well as from us all. Yes British grown flowers tend to be dearer but they are also beautifully grown by people who are passionate about what they do and long for the recognition they deserve. Often they are grown in places where the environment is being nurtured as closely as the flowers, free of chemicals and by growers who understand the importance of keeping our soils healthy and full of life. These people don't see growing as a job but a lifestyle choice, a way of supporting themselves as they support the land. Going into an uncertain future would you rather spend a fiver on a bunch of garish flowers from the supermarket that are chemically treated and have travelled thousands of air miles or save that money for a monthly treat from a grower at your local farmers market or an online florist? And having read this morning that the huge Dutch greenhouses produce blooms that have a higher carbon footprint than flowers imported from Kenya, can anyone happily buy these chemically produced blooms? 

Interflora could be at the forefront of showing how flowers can be bought seasonally and still be beautiful and bespoke. Théy could encourage their franchisees to buy British blooms where possible and to highlight them as a premium range where possible. Théy could be producing seasonal bouquets of British flowers , encouraging florists to become engaged with the industry that so many assume are behind them, whilst demanding that the Dutch lower that carbon footprint. They could be running a range of organically grown blooms and highlighting the reasons why they are a premium range. And for certain they should be saying to anyone who buys from them that sometimes substitutions need to be made because to guarantee a rose in February really in the UK. Is like guaranteeing strawberries at Christmas-a sad lack of understanding of seasonality and proof that we think if we want something we should be able to have it whatever the cost. 

Part 3 will follow.........

Proof British flowers are available all year-these received from Common Farm Flowers in January!! 

British Flowers-The Chelsea 2015 Edition

After the Valentine's Bouquet 2015 fiaso which you can read about here, I was slightly surprised to see a Tweet earlier in the year frrom Interflora saying that their Chelsea 2015 stand would be all about celebrating Bristish flowers and I immediately sent them a message asking someone to contact me. I received an email from a Brand Manager introducing herself and saying how pleased she would be to show me around the stand. I replied, sending the article I wrote, and said, in essence, don't do this half heartedly and don't let the growers of the UK down.

So imagine my surprise to hear from Gill Hodgson of Flowers From The Farm that she had been informed there were Dutch bought flowers being put into the stand. I emailed everyone I could think to email at Interflora and got a message this morning from their Marketing Director that she was happy to speak. And here is the run down of the conversation.....

It seems the decision to go British was to link in with the RHS who at one point wanted a British theme to the Floral Marquee this year. But then the RHS changed their brief, Interflora realised they didn't really need to go the whole hog to use British flowers but just didn't bother to say they weren't going to. And my guess is they think they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for the beady eyes of those there!!

However, shocking and appalling as that is, it's the next bit that really got to me. This Director seemed quite adamant that the UK flower industry was not able to fulfil what she wanted for the stand. I asked which growers she had spoken to and it quickly became apparent that there had been one conversation with one wholesaler, and nothing else and that the flowers had been ordered only in the last few weeks, not months in advance as they ought to have been.  Having spoken with Gill this morning, we now know that many if the required blooms are available, and that growers across the country have a huge array of other blooms ready and waiting.  When this was questioned she asked me how I would feel if I were a bride and the flowers I had been promised or requested weren't available, to which I naturally replied I would trust my British florist to know what would be available and expect there to be substitutions due to our climate if and when necessary. But apparently this is not how Interflora work, which is no surprise in reality, but just very disappointing that they have leant nothing from the previous furore. No understanding of seasonality, or that dreaded word sustainable, and I doubt any thoughts for air miles or chemical footprints. 

Interflora had asked me to write an article for their in house magazine, Mercury, and the original idea would be that off the back of the Chelsea stand I would explain to their florists why they should buy British where possible. But considering this exchange, their corporate stand that if they want it they shall have it and their total lack of real engagement with the amazing British growers across the country who are continuing the amazing fight to keep our cut flower business growing, I'm not going to write that article. 

Instead I'm going to repledge my allegiance to the British flower farmers, growers and the florists who fight for them by using their blooms. And I'm going to ask you to do the same. If you're visiting Chelsea buy a British buttonhole to wear to the show. Ask the florists which blooms are British. Ask why they are not all and what Interflora are doing to support our blooming industry. And away from the show ground? Support them with your hard earned pound. Talk about them. Tell your friends and families about the way flowers are produced in South America and Africa and ask them to see flowers as a luxury item that you can't buy for a fiver with your weekly shop.

I guess what we take from this is that the fight must continue and it strikes me that whilst Chelsea is bringing horticulture to the fore in the next few days, we must shout loudly and be heard. Use social media, tweet @interflora, comment on their Facebook and join in with the #grownnotflown hashtag on both Twitter and Instagram!! Let's get this out there whilst we can. The British Flower Industry has resurrected itself, let's make sure its success continues.

British narcissi snapped at Common Farm Flowers! Beautiful, scented and UK grown.

For the love of all gardens, all hail the NGS!!!

I'm actually going to write a post about gardening!! Well, sort of. I'm certainly going to write a post about gardens.

Every year I make an effort to visit an NGS garden or several. I do this for various reasons but mainly because I do love a garden and I really like to see what people are doing, how they're using plants and why they are using them the way they do. It's fascinating to see how people put together their gardens, be they designed in a specific way, or with a nod to a specific garden genre or even a specific garden. Sometimes the plant pallette is the definitive design brief, be that English cottage garden or jungle, or sometimes it can be the size of the space that defines the design. And sometimes there is no design brief and its a persons very individual collection of plants that creates a garden that is opened.

I have visited some spectacular gardens, ranging from urban jungles to cottage gardens, to ex-Chelsea show gardens and productive biodynamic gardens to garden squares and designed landscapes. Gardens that have taken years to evolve and gardens that have been designed and installed in mere weeks. Gardens that are entire life's works, including gardens of passionate plant collectors where one species is very much in the fore, to gardens that are still evolving and new. Gardens belonging to young and old, to men, women, couples and families. But most importantly, and here's the thing, to people who are passionate about their outdoor space and the way in which it is used. 

To gardeners. To growers. To plantspeople. Call them what you will, these are the people behind the gardens. Those who work tirelessly in the days and weeks before they open for that one day, to create their idea of heaven for you to see and wonder around, notebook and camera in hand. They make cakes, prepare plants for selling and often produce leaflets with planting lists and plans so you can take inspiration from their gardens away with you.

And they do this for love. Proceeds, which this year are £2.637 million, go to a variety of charities, including MacMillan Cancer Care and the Marie Curie nurses, as well gardening charities such as Perennial and supporting the Garden Museum to have a garden intern each year. They are Macmillan and Marie Curies biggest donators, giving each £500,000 this year. 

I have never opened my garden, but my mother opened hers the year before she died. It was, ridiculously, to her the biggest achievement of her life. She felt her garden was far from 'finished' but had been encouraged by a friend who also opens her garden each year, and it was an enormous success. Teas were drunk, cake was eaten, plants were sold and over 200 people visited and stood in awe of the spaces that had been created in 5 short years. The rill and pond, the woodland garden, the kitchen garden, the rose arbour and the loosely named orchard, were visited, discussed, photographed and enjoyed by a line of people who were genuinely interested and pleased to see what was going on. For a woman who had spent years teaching and inspiring young people, to think this was the biggest achievement she had ever had was a little ridiculous, but I think it shows the passion of the hundreds or maybe thousands or millions of gardeners who create these beautiful spaces that we so rarely get to see. 

Ironically less than a year later we were relying on Macmillan nurses to see Mum through the last days and hours of her life, and they occasionally retreated to the garden for a tea break, aware of the sad irony of the situation themselves whilst returning to her to tell her what they had seen, or to bring her a posy of what was flowering in her beloved patch at that moment.

Occasionally a dissenting voice arises about the NGS and the gardens that open, as if the dissenter expects to see something designed to Chelsea Flower Show standards behind each entrance. To those I say, behave!! These are people's gardens first and foremost. They are little pieces of paradise. Visit with open minds and be prepared to understand the people as much as their garden. Marvel in the fact that in their spare time this is what they do, what they love and be happy that they want to share it with you, even though they are often terrified. Understand they are often baring their souls by opening this space, in a way that only an amateur artist accepted for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy might understand. Be kind, be mindful and suggest thoughts but be mindful of open criticism, particularly if you aren't find of it yourself!!

But most of all I say, in a bizarrely proud and British way, visit these gardens, these people, these souls. Buy some tea, take some photos, support those charities and enjoy the gardens whilst being proud of the charities you are helping to support.

To find your local gardens visit www.ngs.org.uk, where you can also discover how to go about opening your own garden to visitors through the NGS, whilst supporting their charities.

Expanding our environmental view

This is a piece I wrote for the People's Republic of Stokes Croft but I've also shared it here as I think it's an interesting topic that many don't quite see. The environment is not just land in the countryside, or parks and gardens, but it's avery space we inhabit, icluding our homes and so we need to expand our view of environmental issues to cover everything that covers. Which, I might add, is pretty much everything.....

In 1980 the right to buy council housing became law in the new Housing Act and thousands of people up and down the country achieved what they had never thought possible-a home that they owned. Little wrong with that  I hear you cry but in reality what happened was that, instead of reinvesting the monies raised by building new social housing for a population that was growing exponentially, that money was ring fenced by the then Tory government, and the growth of building of social homes has steadily declined ever since, whilst the prices of housing has risen at rate that is almost unbelievable. With land being seen as an asset, it’s cost has risen and average house prices, which includes the prices of all those once council houses, have risen alongside that at a rate that soon will make home owner ship by anyone other than the wealthy impossible. Average house prices in 1977 were still less than £10,000 where today the average price is around £190.00 nationally and in London and the South East that figure rises to just over £400,000.

Of course for the generation that were able to buy their council homes this has lead to the possibility of making huge sums of money on homes that were sold for enormously more than they were purchased for and these homes are now a part of the national housing stock and sold as such, meaning that they are now generally not affordable homes at all. Indeed the governments’s idea of an affordable home is one that is 20% less than its average cost which is still completely out of the average wageholders budget of £26,000 per year. With mortgage companies generally asking for at least a 5% deposit and often far more we have created a situation where we will have future generations renting and never being able to get onto the property ladder, already saddled with huge debts from university fees and relying on more and more unscrupulous landlords as need for housing outweighs availability.

Constantly we hear the cry that we must leave the world a better place for our children and our children’s children. That we must care for greenbelt, encourage more conservation areas and SSSI but rarely do we see housing mentioned as a part of this. However, how can it not be? Our environment is not just the outdoors, the countryside or parks, but it is everything we live in. It is our cafes, those areas in city centres between buildings, that grassed area behind the fence on an estate. Our environment is the space in which we live.

So on Stokes Croft, Bristol’s independent district where creativity is at the centre of so many lives, how can we look at a building that is threatened with a London developer’s plan of gentrification as any other than an environmental issue. Stokes croft, the area known for its incredible squats, its street art and its independent spirit, who fought as a community to keep Tesco at bay cannot be the place to put a gated community in any way. In fact, frankly, gated communities, designed with mainly safety and security as its main criteria, cannot possibly help maintain any form of independent spirit. The fact that only 7% of the dwellings will be affordable and that is likely to be just the 20% lower rate rather than social housing, in an area where the housing crisis can be seen every day, on the streets, ought to be seen as a scandal and a disaster for our future generations, rather than a positive solution to a building that has been crumbling for many years.

Positive solutions need to be the way forwards, looking at how we ensure people are safe and secure in homes they can afford and in communities where they feel they are safe and secure. Rather than continually looking at constant development at the outer edges of our cities of box type homes, we need to look at the building stock within our cities, leaving the greenbelt alone for our ever growing population, and looking at the amount of buildings that could be turned into decent homes within the city, where people will be able to be car free, and rather than looking at bus routes that stretch ever further out of the city, the routes can concentrate on the areas that are already populated. With a larger population living within city boundaries, parks budgets and budgets for urban landscaping could increase, helping the city to cope with rising temperatures due to our changing climate. 

With all this in mind surely at the centre of the Carriageworks plan should be community. The Carriageworks Action Group and Knightstone Housing have put together a plan with community at it’s heart, and that must be the plan that is implemented at the very least. Imagine a beautiful city centre community building, with homes that are affordable and with the quantity of social housing that Bristol city Council recommends in all housing schemes of 30%-40% available to people struggling to pay the ever increasing private rents in the area. Imagine that it has beautiful and productive gardens that are open for the entire community of Stokes Croft to use and which people can safely use as a path through to the area at the back of the building 24 hours a day. With small shops and workshops built in at affordable rents on the ground floor, it can also become a centre for micro businesses to begin and flourish, creating a truly local economy and holding the money spent within that economy, adding to it’s wealth, both financial and creative.

This should not be a dream. This is the vision of green and sustainable living that we must move towards if we are to create a world that we are proud to leave for our children. As a species we must stop looking at houses as assets and begin to look at them as homes. Only then can we leave a planet that we are proud of for future generations.

The recognition of confusion

Yesterday one of the papers decided it was a good idea to let us all know that supermarkets that sell daffs have been asked to make sure that people are aware that they aren't a vegetable and therefore not to eat them. And needless to say on social media there was an immediate backlash, with comments such as who "would be so stupid" abounding. And I guess to us, to the converted who know what ingredients look like and understand that narcissi are poisonous, it's pretty basic knowledge and something we are unlikely to do. But, the question is, what if you don't.

What if you don't cook from scratch? 

What if you don't recognise certain veg? 

What if you can't read the label?

Now some might raise their eyebrows at these questions but let me tell you a tale of an afternoon I had last year.

During Food Connections Festival in Bristol there is an awesome series of lunches run by, among others, Fareshare's Surplus Supper Club. The food is cooked by the chefs from the supper club from food that sound otherwise be wasted, along with several people from the immediate community, which in this case was the Silai Centre in Easton, an amazing place where there is a nursery, the Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) offices and several other community organisations. The ladies who had helped the chefs were all Somali, and they told us some things that really made me sit up and think. The most shocking and sad of these things for me was that whilst they feel they're struggling to be a part of the community, that there are also huge issues surrounding food. One lady described attending a class where they were to make leek and potato soup, and how she had felt in that class not recognising a leek, let alone what to do with it. Not knowing which end was to eat, whether any of it should be thrown away or if parts of it were poisonous. And then knowing that her English wasn't good enough to be able to ask someone. It was clear this was causing serious issues both for this lady and her friends and fortunately the SPAN had picked up on the issues and begun classes that were accessible to this community. But what of the many other pockets of new communities across the city or, actually, countrywide? 

I can't imagine being in that place, and I genuinely hope neither I or anyone I know ever are. Feeding ourselves, our families and loved ones should be something we can take for granted. And more importantly something we are prepared to help people with if we see them struggling. Imagine not feeling that you could feed your family on top of the struggles of a new country and not being able to access help to change that.

As Emma Cooper has pointed out today in her blog, Chinese Chives don't look that dissimilar to Daffs just before they break into flower and let's assume that the public health body that asked for this to be done has done so because people have made the dreadful mistake already. Suddenly it's a truly tragic and human story, that could be touching any of us who live in a multi-cultural and vibrant city. I say shame on the papers for reporting it in a way that was open to mickey taking and good on the overrun public health organisations for getting their concern out into the public sphere. 

The Innocence of Childhood

The last few days have been a roller coaster of emotions, despair leading to optimism and back again, sometimes in the blink of an eye.

And then I heard a story. And a true one at that. A story that made me smile and made me cry all at the same time. Perhaps a story of naivety, of immature innocence but still one that warmed the cockles.

Many of you will be aware of Skipchen, and many of you will have seen Sam or one of his colleagues talking passionately about their Pay As You Like restaurants that are popping up UK wide, feeding people with food that would otherwise have gone to landfill, and asking people to pay what they'd like, or what they can, for the food. Any way, Sam spoke at an event I was at last night and here's the story he shared........

Bristol has a reasonably affluent area called Henleaze, which has the city's only full sized Waitrose, who regularly throw food into skips that go to landfill. There had obviously been some conversation around food waste at school, and Skipchen had obviously been discussed. So 25 children, as only children could do, wrote to the manager of Waitrose and asked him to give his food that normally went into the skip, to Skipchen.

And he agreed!!!

There's a lesson to be learnt here. If a child says to you, but that doesn't make sense, listen to them. Ask them why. Enter into a meaningful discussion with them without using any adult rhetoric or economic figures. Just listen. 

Food that goes into skips to go to landfill?

Beans being brought from desert areas in Africa? 

Cutting down trees on our most fertile soil?

I could go on but you get my point. 

And we'll done Sam and the Skipchen crew. You're awesome. As are all the other organisations out there putting food into mouths rather than bins and shouting about food waste and the horrors of it.

Standing up for your beliefs.

I went to bed, under my nice warm duvet in my comfortably heated flat, last night, in the full knowledge that there were protestors sleeping in freezing temperatures in the trees on our beloved plot, to try to keep the chainsaws at bay. Over the weekend they had slipped onto the land where the trees are and begun to set up a camp in the trees, determined to try to stop the chainsaws that were originally set to begin today.

So today I went to site, mainly to say thank you but also to see how things were and chat with other people about the protest and their part in it. What I found was a group of people aged from 1 right up to folk in their 70s. A group of people connected to the land, not necessarily at that site, but to land all across the city. A group of people who have worked on many different community projects that rely on our land to survive. Community projects that change and improve lives and if you have any doubt of that, please read Mrs Seven Storeys Up on this blog.

There have been plenty of news stories about this today, which is great as its been nigh on impossible to engage with any national papers until now. But I think it's important to keep reminding people of a few vital points. Primarily, Bristol has the title of European Green Capital in 2015 ànd however much it is widely understood that improving the transport system must be a part of that, concreting over Grade A soils cannot possibly be. A good transport system, which connects the whole city and its suburbs well and efficiently is definitely needed in Bristol. Metrobus however, is not it as it misses out large pieces of the city(an estimated 100,000 people in East Bristol alone) and fails to support any of our hospitals or schools. The cynic in me thinks it moves people from South Bristol where there is a lack of local employment, up to huge business parks in South Gloucestershire. Business parks that are full of call centres and retail areas where people are unlikely to be earning the Living Wage. Hardly the jobs of dreams or the local jobs for local people that we should be encouraging.

We are also in the International Year of the Soil. A year in which we should be looking at the damage we have done to our soils since mass use of agro chemicals was brought in post the 2nd world war. A year in which we should be looking after our soils, encouraging good practise in order that we begin to repair our soils. A year where we look at how, going into an uncertain future, we protect the good soils we have, many of which are in urban areas where great soils such as that at Stapleton and on our Blue Finger are. After all it's not as if we have unending amounts of best and most versatile soil-there is less than 3% of such soil across the entire UK.

But for me, what's most important is that we start to appreciate locally grown food on local land. Food grown by local producers, that support their community by producing top quality produce that keeps the local economy buoyant. Unless we start to fight for our land, this can't happen. Remembering that not just an allotment site but an award winning community food project, Feed Bristol, is at risk here, I ask you to look for your local community project and support it. You never know when it might be gone, possibly in the name of progress.