FLORAL SOCIETY
Our rooms and spirits are always lifted by flowers, but how can we take a more sustainable approach to sourcing and displaying them? MARC ABBOTT discovers a flourishing community of florist-growers with some easy answers
Sourcing your flowers locally is the best option for the planet
24 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.COM/INTERIORSGUIDE
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23/06/2022 07:04
PHOTOS: HANA SNOW; EVA NEMETH; EMMA LEWIS
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s windows are f lu ng open and summer sunbeams grace our walls, we long for the visual delight and olfactory assault of cut flowers in our rooms. But with ecological approaches to interior design increasingly key, how do we ensure that our floral embellishments are sourced, displayed, and their delight prolonged, in the most sustainable manner? One obvious answer lies close to home. ‘Sourcing your flowers as locally as possible limits their air miles,’ says Olivia Wilson, owner of Hertfordshire flower studio Wetherly (wetherly.co.uk). ‘And most small market farms won’t use pesticides or will limit their use of chemical interventions that are more harmful to the planet.’ By obtaining our flowers from local growers (flowersfromthefarm.co.uk is a great place to start), we also ensure a seasonal approach to displaying them. ‘Flowers grown out of season carry a huge carbon and chemical footprint and are often grown under heated greenhouses requiring vast amounts of water and fertiliser to keep them alive,‘ echoes West Sussex florist Milli Proust. ‘That’s before they’re wrapped in single-use plastic and flown across the world.’ By expecting certain flowers to be always available, some would argue we risk losing our attachment with traditional cycles of the earth. To this end, Somerset-born f loriculturist Kitten Grayson opines, ‘The fact that
