20th March, 2024 in Fiction, Natural World

For the love of flowers 

By Emma Timpany

For National Flower Day Emma Timpany, author of Botanical Short Stories, discusses the fascination with flowers.

We humans have a universal, innate love of flowers, and go to great lengths to satisfy this desire. The worldwide flower growing industry is worth billions of pounds, and impressively fine-tuned to deliver these delicate products to us within days. Most of the cut flower varieties we currently buy were grown in England until just thirty years ago, when domestic production declined due to competition from the huge expansion of the flower industry in Holland, much of it in highly controlled artificial greenhouse conditions.

In recent times, much flower production has moved to warmer climates in the global south, but environmental concerns mean that British grown flowers are increasingly undergoing a renaissance. Our cooler climate is suitable for many commercially grown flowers such as gladioli, stocks, sunflowers, Sweet Williams, peonies, asters and alstroemeria, as well as the ever-popular spring bulbs.

The Joys of Spring

Twenty years ago, I moved from London to the traditional flower growing area of Cornwall. As I write it is early February and spring is about to arrive. Plants do well in the mild, wet climate of south west England, and many are already showing their colours. Dark indigo Iris reticulata peek out of pots by my front door, and hyacinths push their flower shoots above the soil. Narcissi are flowering, as is a glossy-leaved, pink-flowered camellia. In a month or two, the beautiful Japanese cherry tree which I planted in my garden will burst into flower, filling the air with its sweet, clean scent. The flowering of the cherry blossom is a highlight of my year, reminding me of the much-loved Prunus yedoensis which grew in the garden of my childhood home in southern New Zealand. In common with many others, the plants in my garden are full of memories which connect me to my family history and the people and places I love.

Blossom photograph

When I look out of my window, I see a field of daffodils which has been steadily harvested over the last few weeks, a sight familiar in this area for over a century. Daffodils and narcissi have been grown commercially in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for almost 150 years, and Cornwall is now the world’s largest producer of daffodils, with a harvest of around 900 million daffodil stems annually along with 15,000 tonnes of bulbs. Decades of research have resulted in the development of many new breeds and scientific advances. Daffodils contain galantamine – a compound known to slow the progression of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Daffodil crops grown 1,000 feet above sea level are used in the pharmaceutical industry as they produce more galantamine than daffodils grown anywhere else due to the altitude.

The native daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissius, was celebrated by Shakespeare as ‘the flower which comes before the swallows dare.’ Once abundant, this wildflower is now much rarer, having declined during the 19th century as a result of habitat loss.

In later spring, when the beech trees open in the woods which line the banks of the River Fal and its creeks, the ground is covered with native bluebells and wood anemones, a sign of ancient and undisturbed woodland. Thick patches of enchanter’s nightshade and dog’s mercury thrive in the damp edges of the woodland in the beautiful, dappled light, and fallow and roe deer, sometimes glimpsed like smoke in the shadows, leave narrow paths of trodden flowers where they have passed by.

A Family Legacy

Flowers have underpinned the fortunes of my family for three generations. My Australian grandmother, Minnie, began her flower growing and floristry business in Brisbane, Australia, in the 1930s in order to provide for her growing family after my grandfather, Matie, lost his railway job during the Great Depression. My mother and many of her family members worked in the business alongside Minnie, the space under their raised wooden villa transformed into a bustling, sweltering workshop.

In the far south of 1950s New Zealand, my father was due to begin a teacher training course when a summer holiday job as a driver for a floristry business changed his plans, and much to his family’s surprise he decided to dedicate himself to a life of flowers. Within a few short years, he became the owner of one of New Zealand’s oldest floristry businesses, Miss Reid the Florist in Dunedin, New Zealand. After time spent working in Highgate, London for Geoffrey and Anne Lewis, founder members of Interflora, he became president of Interflora New Zealand and, in later years, of the organisation’s Pacific Unit. As Minnie’s business was also a member of Interflora, it was only a matter of time before my parents met at an Interflora conference in the 1960s.

Growing up, I spent much of my time working in the family business and in our large garden, where my parents grew flowers and foliage to supplement the commercially grown flowers bought daily at a wholesale market. Inevitably, I worked as a florist myself when I first moved to London in 1992.

Despite the loveliness of the bouquets and arrangements produced by florists, it is a rather grubby, gruelling occupation requiring long hours worked in the cool and sometimes cold conditions which keep flowers in prime condition. But it has its upsides: floristry took me to places I would never otherwise have gone – inside the residences of famous movie stars filming on location in London, in private elevators to the penthouses of media magnates and captains of industry, into the sumptuous interiors of London Guildhalls and the banqueting hall of the Lord Mayor of London’s residence, the Mansion House, to deliver arrangements for dinners attended by the great and the good. Intrigue abounded in the hush-hush bouquets which rock stars sent to their mistresses and, a few days later, to their furious wives.

My experiences as a florist have taught me that flowers speak for us above and beyond our words. They express our feelings and accompany us at times of happiness and great sadness. They lift our spirits and console us, their colours, shapes, and scents conveying emotions and embodying memories. They move through the seasons and the years beside us, reflecting our own life cycles and journey through time and the seasons of our lives.  

Being in the company of plants and flowers in our homes and gardens improves our wellbeing, lowering our heart rate and cortisol levels, calming us. Far from being frivolous decorations or showy lifestyle choices, plants are essential providers of the air we breathe and the food we eat. This world would be a far less delightful place – indeed one in which we could not live – without them.