90% of cut flowers in the UK are imported. Despite the UK’s drive to sustainability, flowers seemed to have escaped the radar. In addition, some countries we import flowers from use pesticides banned in the UK. By smelling your new bunch of flowers you could be inhaling chemicals banned in Britain.
We are very supportive of sustainable flowers and Hunts and last year proudly hosted a seasonal stall from Bunch selling locally grown seasonal flowers.
Ahead of a delayed 2024 British season, Melissa from Bunch has kindly produced an ultimate guide to seasonal flower.
About Bunch
Bunch is a flower studio in Bloxham run by local florist Melissa. We specialise in using locally grown flowers in our work, considering our impact on the environment from the moment the seeds are sown to how the arrangements are disposed of.
Why locally grown flowers?
Locally grown flowers are so unique, it is unlikely you will experience the same mix of flowers on the same day year on year. All the flowers we use are naturally grown and chemical free which means you can happily take a big sniff of their beautiful fragrance!
Locally grown flowers are never wrapped in single use plastic but instead come to us fresh from the farm in a reusable bucket of water ready for us to arrange. It is quite surprising just how many times imported flowers get wrapped before they get to the consumer, the cellophane round the bouquet you buy is often not the first time that flower has been wrapped, so you can only imagine how much single use plastic is produced by imported flowers. These flowers are often grown in climate controlled conditions and imported in air conditioned environments, the amount of energy produced by one flower stem is quite remarkable.
Our work is very much inspired by nature and changes through the Seasons. The locally grown cut flower Season usually runs from April through to late October. We dry flowers to extend this and use bulbs and beautiful foliage at times when flowers are less abundant. It’s amazing what can be created with a bit of imagination.
Where to buy and local flower courses
Over the past two years we have sold bunches on our honesty box flower stands in Bloxham as a bid to make locally grown paper wrapped flowers more accessible to our village. We are very excited to have our stand back outside the showroom in June, keep an eye out for a newsletter with more information.
We also have an online shop www.bunch-uk.com where we sell larger gift bouquets. We teach group workshops to celebrate any occasion and style flowers for weddings, events and photoshoots. We recently joined the Farewell Flowers directory, bringing a more natural and friendly approach to funeral flowers and to ultimately remove plastic waste from flowers in local church yards. Melissa is also the sustainable church ambassador for the local area, teaching church flower arrangers how to create without single use plastic.
When are the flowers going to be outside Hunts?
With the wet weather, availability is slightly down this year. As such we are planning on the stall being outside Hunts on the following days. The stall we remain from the Thursday until the Saturday unless flowers sell out beforehand. Feel free to pop in to reserve a bunch if you are away. Please note, these dates might change depending on availability, so please ring beforehand or check our Instagram.
· Thursday 27th June
· Thursday 4th July
· Thursday 18th July
· Thursday 8th August
· Thursday 5th September
· Thursday 19th September
