snowing slowing growing

It is, as everyone knows, a late start to the growing season this year. Growers using heated houses or tunnels are little affected but most of the traditional UK flower market is still, happily, weather dependent. You can help things along in an unheated tunnel, but if it keeps freezing there's little you can do but wait and hope that the buds will eventually move from slumber to open up. I have decided to work directly with a couple of small Cornish growers to help things along here to bulk up the few winter offerings we do produce, but even these southwesterly growers are having difficulty getting their usually early crops to deliver early this year. But it's great having the conversations with other growers, and realising we're all in the same boat. Particularly as I have been feeling a little despondent about the futility of my enterprise when confronted with yet another day of snow showers.

Look out for some beautiful anemones when my mail order season starts in a couple of weeks, particularly some spectacular albino white forms and deepest velvety red. They will make their first appearance here in Mother's Day bouquets, which will be available to order from March 1st. I will send out bouquets including Cornish flowers on Thursdays and Fridays to ensure they are as fresh as my own.

My aim this year is to supply bouquets that even the most attentive gardener will find interesting. One of the great and good gardeners (but to my shame I can't recall which one) once said that a salad should always have at least ten different varieties of leaf and flower in it. I'm aiming to do the same with our flowers, trying to ensure that there are at least ten different types of flower in each bunch. I believe it is this personal touch that encourages people to choose our flowers rather than more mainstream options, and the advantage of growing our own is that we can ensure that wide variety, and can ensure that everything is freshly picked to condition for a day before moving out. The flowers we are bringing in from Cornwall arrive here within a day of being picked so they are also as fresh as can be.

And the website should finally be largely updated next week ready for the season's start, there will be a load more gallery pictures so people can really see what's going on here.