Last autumn, I visited Sissinghurst Castle Garden. November is not traditionally the best time for a pilgrimage to a world-famous garden, but the weather had been mild, so it had held on to the remnants of its summer glories. In the veg gardens, still busy with fennel and chard, I read a little chalkboard scribbled with a note about “companion planting”. The gardeners had planted French marigold near the carrots to deter carrot fly, and poached egg plant to attract hoverflies, the larvae of which have an appetite for aphids. I realised that in my own garden, established but new to me, I had made a mistake. Overexcited by the prospect of growing veg to eat, I neglected to think much about flowers.
“Flowers are really important because they’re a key part of a plant’s life cycle,” says Poppy Okotcha, an ecological grower, forager and home cook, who has a devoted following on Instagram and is cultivating her own edible and medicinal forest garden in Devon. “Understanding those full life cycles, and how they play in with other creatures, whether insects or animals, including ourselves, is really important.”
Asking gardeners about their favourite flowers seems almost heretical nowadays, when the soil has been recognised as such a vital resource for wellbeing and productivity. It seems frivolous to focus on growing peonies. But flowers still have a vital role to play in modern gardens. “I think that the beauty of them is useful, and the fact that their beauty is really useful to us is an incredible thing,” says Okotcha. “It’s so good for our mental wellbeing. There is nothing much more enjoyable than sitting in a garden full of flowers. They’re so sensory, it is just such a wonderful experience to interact with them.”
Okotcha admits that she has a soft spot for calendula. “The flowers are amazing for pollinators. They are medicinal, they can be used as balms, they can be made into teas, and they are a great companion plant. They’re annuals, which means that you just sow the seeds in the spring and you’ll have lovely flowers by summertime.”
Artists have been drawn to the beauty of flowers for millennia; ancient Egyptian art depicts the decorative use of flowers in vases and flower bowls in homes. Most of us are familiar with the mood-enhancing properties of a fresh bunch of flowers brightening up a room, and it’s possible to grow or buy them ethically.
The SSAW Collective is a UK community of chefs, florists and growers who share a focus on nature-led practices, seasonality, and advocating for progressive changes in the food and floral industries. They sell cut flowers from their own fields, from April through to October. They had cyclamen on offer for Valentine’s Day – as well as a cheeky poster of a bunch of snowdrops asking the question, “Why buy roses in February?”
I spoke to two of its three founders, the florists and flower growers Olivia Wilson and Jess Geissendorfer (the third, Lulu Cox, is a chef with an interest in regenerative farming). Wilson and Geissendorfer are passionate about sustainability in the cut-flower industry, which has not received anywhere near the level of scrutiny as fashion or food.
“Essentially, over the last 50 years, with the development of a global flower culture industry, we’ve completely lost touch with what seasonality truly means. That is not necessarily the fault of florists, it’s just that people now can get roses all year round. This has created a nightmare situation where flowers are being grown in incredibly unnatural and harmful ways, and there’s not really any need for it,” says Wilson.
She says one key problems is a lack of labelling: “Customers, and even florists, aren’t able to find out the information about where and how their flowers are grown.”
One small step, suggests Geissendorfer, would be for consumers to reframe their expectations of cut flowers. “People want them to last a certain amount of time, and it just isn’t realistic for a natural product. A lot of people just plonk flowers in a vase and expect them to be okay and to last a really long time.”
I have to ask. What are their favourites? “I like all flowers,” says Wilson, diplomatically, “but I do have a soft spot for the ones that could go unnoticed, that are just there, doing their own thing, not asking too much. Something like a geum.”
Geissendorfer says she couldn’t name one favourite, but will admit that she likes poppies. “They’re quite a bitchy flower, because they don’t like being touched, but they look just as good in a field, or on a mound of weeds, as they do at the centre of a bridal bouquet.”
Both point out that there are plenty of varieties of cut-and-come-again flowers that people can grow in their own gardens, if they have available space. “You’ll have corridors for pollinators, and if you’re not using pesticides in your garden that can have such a huge, huge impact,” says Geissendorfer. “People don’t realise how much positive effect you could have on the environment, in your own garden.”
Flowers to try
Poached egg plant
Loved by children for its resemblance to a poached egg, as well as by predatory insects such as hoverflies, which should help out with any aphid problems in your garden.
Nasturtium
This annual is one for the kitchen gardeners, as its flowers, seeds and leaves are all edible. “They’re genuinely delicious. The flowers are so peppery, and the leaves are really lovely to eat as well,” says Jess Geissendorfer. Look at Poppy Okotcha’s Instagram for a great post on pickled nasturtium seeds.
Cosmos
Cosmos come in many shapes and sizes, and often resemble fireworks. Pollinators love the colourful flowers, which can be cut and brought inside. A tip from the SSAW Collective is to dip them in hot water for 15 seconds, then in cold water, which should help them last longer in a vase.
Coneflowers
Rudbeckia, also known as black-eyed Susans, flower from late summer to mid-autumn, keeping vibrant colour in the garden way past the summer boom. In winter, the seedheads remain an attractive feature, and provide food and shelter for wildlife.
Snowdrops
Okotcha says bulbs are a good place for novices to start: “They’re pretty foolproof, you put them in the ground and they just get on with it.” In spring, she takes notes of the flowers she spots growing and then orders bulbs in the autumn. “One of my favourites are snowdrops. They’re bloom early in the year, and it’s a lovely, welcome sign of spring.”
