Ahead of this month’s celebration of British flowers, I’ve been to visit Cotswold Posy Patch.
When I catch up with Laura Seaton at Cotswold Posy Patch she’s painstakingly removing tendrils and side shoots from cordon-grown sweet peas.
It’s a slow, fiddly job but along with layering them will produce flowers perfect for cutting.
“It is quite labour intensive,” she admits, “but the plants keep going for longer and they’re easier to harvest.”
Each plant has been grown up huge bamboo canes and, once it reaches the top, it’s untied, laid along the ground, and then tied in to grow up another cane further along the row. The result is startling with long-stemmed flowers atop canes that almost reach the top of the polytunnel.
Cotswold Posy Patch is one of a growing number of British cut flower producers who aim to provide seasonal and home-grown blooms to sell either direct to the public or to florists.
It was started four years ago by Liz Fallon, who ran it from home for the first couple of years. Laura joined the team earlier this year and together they produce a wide range of flowers from a plot behind the pick-your-own fruit fields at Primrose Vale on the outskirts of Cheltenham.
When I visited, the site was ‘between seasons’ with early blooms, including Sweet Williams and foxgloves, fading and new sowings of cosmos and zinnias not quite in full production.
Even so, there was plenty of colour with a beautiful crop of ‘Chantilly Bronze’ snapdragons – a variety I’m trialling this year – clouds of Ammi visnaga and Achillea millefolium ‘Summer Pastels’ in shades of pink, peach, yellow and cream.
The polytunnel was the first growing area at Cotswold Posy Patch and it enables the team to get a head start on the season.
“Compared with a lot of British flower growers we can start a bit earlier and keep going a bit longer.”
Adding lots of mushroom compost and other organic matter has helped to improve the soil quality in preparation for what is quite an intensive way of growing. As one flower crop finishes so another goes in and there’s also some over-sowing used with herbs now growing over spring bulbs.
The herbs, including a long-stemmed variety of basil, are used in bouquets to give added scent, and fragrance is one of the considerations when choosing what to grow.
Outside the polytunnel, there are later sowings of sweet peas, a rather good double feverfew, white freesias, scabious, statice and oregano for more scent.
Everything is grown from seed by Liz at home and then planted through membrane to keep the weeds down and supported by wire mesh that is stretched across the beds, sometimes at two heights, if the plants are tall.
Cotswold Posy Patch supplies a lot of event florists so colours tend towards white and pastels, which are favoured by brides.
“Often you find varieties don’t perform as you think they’re going to,” comments Laura. “There’s a lot of trial and error, working out which we like and which are going to work for us.”
One thing that’s being trialled is a dainty pink carnation, ‘Podium’, that they’re hoping will be popular with customers.
For later in the season, they are growing more autumn shades and there’s already a rather beautiful peach-coloured dahlia beginning to bloom.
Meanwhile, honesty and nigella seedheads are drying ready for use in dried flower wreaths.
As well as supplying florists, Cotswold Posy Patch sells cut flowers at the Primrose Vale farm shop on Fridays and Saturdays, runs workshops and hosts a monthly Flower Club from April to October where members meet up to arrange blooms and talk flowers.
It is also part of Flowers From the Farm, a not-for-profit network of British flower growers founded in 2011, which is running its first Big Weekend from August 16-18 with events hosted by more than 100 growers across the country.
As part of the celebration of British Flowers, Cotswold Posy Patch is offering the chance to visit their flower patch at Primrose Vale Farm, find out more about the business, pick blooms and make a jam jar posy. This will take place on Saturday August 17, with several sessions during the day. Numbers are limited so booking is essential.
There’s more information about other events in The Flower Farmers’ Big Weekend here.