5 quintessential blooms to celebrate British Flowers Week
British Flowers Week - June 26th to 30th 2023
This week celebrates British Flowers - a national celebration of seasonal, locally-grown flowers. The event aims to support the incredible work of the nation’s florists, growers and wholesalers who put British flowers in the spotlight.
Learn more about British Flowers Week and how you can show your support.
Although the celebration is primarily focused on the cut flower market, for us, it simply provides a lovely opportunity to feature some of our favourite varieties to use within sustainable garden design, with a focus on plants to attract pollinators.
We featured a blog earlier this year ‘Growing your own cut flowers’ with plenty of ideas and advice but also highlighted some wonderful UK flower growers who are pioneering sustainability and seasonality. Have a read
planting choices for Sustainable gardening
As mentioned many times throughout our blogs, both as an individual and within our business, we are wholeheartedly committed to sustainability in all the choices we make from the materials we use, soil considerations and plant selection.
By Incorporating pollinator planting and native plants and flowers into our garden designs, we encourage more opportunities for foraging and pollinating insects to benefit.
Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea)
An important source of pollen for bees these staple cottage garden flowers bring vertical interest to borders with dappled shade
I frequently recommend Foxgloves for our client’s gardens as they have a particularly strong form without taking up too much visual weight within a planting scheme.
Put simply though, there is nothing quite like the pleasure you get from observing a fat bumble bee squeeze itself into the tubular flower to emerge again covered in a beautiful dusting of yellow pollen.
2. Alstroemeria (Summer Saint)
Nina and I both love including this variety of Alstroemeria in our designs. They are such a hardworking perennial and are perfect for bringing a flamboyant, tropical feel to borders and containers.
What's more, they are a very hardy perennial and can withstand extreme temperatures so perfect for our rather unpredictable British climate. They are also free-flowering and will keep blooming for up to 5 months!
3. English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
English lavender is one of the most attractive and cold-tolerant varieties of lavender. Very popular with many of our clients, I particularly like to include lavender along walkways where our clients can enjoy their beautiful scent but it is equally stunning in borders and pots placed in full sun and well-drained soil.
Another wonderful plant for bees, reaching its peak in June and July, just as our furry friends are out in force, foraging for nectar.
4. English Roses
Rosa ‘New Dawn’ climber is a beautiful powder-pink sweetly fragrant rose with a quintessential cottage-garden feel and is one of my favourite varieties to use in our gardens at the moment.
As described by David Austin, it is the forerunner of the modern perpetual flowering climbers.
In fact, we are growing this variety of rose at our nursery in Hampshire this year as part of our seasonal potted planting schemes project and they are proving to be very successful with abundant flowering.
5. Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus)
Without a doubt one of the most popular annual flowers in the UK, they’re so easy to grow, look amazing and smell heavenly. For me, nothing says summer more than a pretty little jam jar full of sweet peas on the kitchen table!
While these are the sweet peas best known to most home gardeners, there are also perennial types, often known as ‘everlasting peas’ which are particularly appealing as they do not need to be sown anew each year. They sadly don’t bring the same sweet scent as annual peas but are available in a wide choice of colours so make a lovely addition to sunny fringes or herbaceous borders and can remain in your garden over a number of years.
These include cultivars of Lathyrus latifolius, L. grandiflorus, L. aureus, L. vernus, L. rotundifolius and L. nervosus, for example. Find out more about perennial peas.
if you would like to talk to us about planting schemes for your garden you can reach us on 0207 305 7183 or email at enquire@alasteranderson.com
