UK flower farmers promote locally grown flowers

Business is blooming for flower farmers across the Westcountry. They are out in force selling everything from fragrant peonies to foxgloves to celebrate British Flowers Week.

There are more than 30 flower farms big and small across Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset and the Isles of Scilly supporting hundreds of jobs in the British cut flower industry, worth £2billion a year.

This week, they are encouraging customers to choose flowers that are grown not flown. Fiona Arnold of the Good Flower Company in Exeter Devon sources flowers from local suppliers.

She said: "Across the Westcountry, there are a growing band of dedicated flower growers bringing back long lost flowers we used to buy like larkspur, cornflowers, love in a Mist, sweet peas, snapdragons, sweet williams or smelling roses that you can sink your nose in to with out fear of inhaling herbicides and fungicides found on some imported varieties.

"Seasonal and locally grown flowers, often means your flowers were only picked the day before and helps the local economy. We buy from small independent growers across the South West - some have been growing for five generations.

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