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| The trowel of love, so spotty and perfect...... |
I’m avoiding all things red/flowery and heart shaped today – the price of flowers at this time of year is truly outrageous. I can’t help but feel bad for those out there who pay over the odds at this time of year in the name of romance. Whilst we are all worth it, its often hardly value for money. I’m pretty sure St. Valentine wouldn’t approve of the commercialism that surrounds this festival. He sounded like a pretty nice chap – helping those lovelost souls to get married in private. On the other hand, any excuse to have/give or send flowers, show someone you love them, can't be a bad festival after all. To be honest I'd rather a big bag of compost or a trowel, I'm positively giddy at the prospect of compost - so many possibilities!
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| Compost, could there be a better present? |
That being said, I’m a big sender of flowers/plants/bulbs myself. If a birthday or an occasion pops up that merits a something, generally I send flowers or a plant if I can. If I’m taking flowers locally, I try and gather an arrangement from my garden, spread the love and I enjoy putting together hand tied flowers. If I’m sending ‘away sooth’ I try and source UK cut flowers – but it’s not always possible to find out ‘where’ or ‘how’ your flowers are grown. More and more companies are getting to grips with ‘ethical/local/uk’ flowers though so its getting easier to do. Personally, however, I’d rather have a home grown bouquet, a plant, bulb, seed, cutting or a rhizome – than a bunch of commercial flowers.
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| A stem of these lillies at our florist £3 each - one bag of bulbs which will come back year after year - £2.49 - I can wait......... |
Don’t get me wrong I love flowers – I truly do – and I enjoy a cut flower as good as the next girl. My personal favourite is Lilium longiflorum or Lilium regale, both of these will get me all weak at the knees. During the year I also love to combine a few flowers from the garden into the house – to truly enjoy them. However, at this time of year I’d rather a bunch of bulbs, packet of seeds, bare rooted shrub, a wheelbarrow or even a nice trowel than a bunch of flowers. The money spent on those are likely to be far less than for cut flowers – even if I love them so, I can wait and grow my own. That away I get to have them bloom over and over again, for many, many years.
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| How many bunches of flowers do you think we could get out of that lot? |
Does that make me unromantic? My romantic skills have been likened to that of a stone on more than one occasion. I’ve also been labelled with the term ‘Pragmatist’ more than once. Whilst it’s not always given as a compliment, I always see it as one!
