As ecofriendly gardeners, we grow our flowers using horticultural practises that are kind to the planet. And as ecofriendly florists, we continue to follow that ethos. Besides the botanical materials, (flowers, foliage, seed heads etc.) we, as florists, use a range of other materials ( as containers, mechanics, ties and wrappings and labels) in our practise. And we strive to ensure that these floristry materials are planet friendly too. Identifying and sourcing sustainable materials is time consuming and complex, and requires the investigative skills of Hercule Poirot. Basically, we need to consider five aspects;

i) the source of the raw materials. Are they produced from oil, or are the raw materials mined from the earth, or grown on the land?

ii) the amount of energy used in production.

iii) the location of production. The more local an item is produced, the less energy used for transport.

iv) the ease with which the item can be reused or recycled.

v) the final destination of the item. Does it end up in land-fill, or does the item break down on a home compost heap?

Here, we list what we have learned so far about containers, mechanics, ties, and wrappings and labels.

1. Containers

Glassware Containers of all shapes and sizes - vases, jars, bottles etc. Made from (apparently) abundant raw materials; sand, soda ash and limestone. Uses energy for manufacture. Can be reused and recycled any number of times.

Ceramics Three main types; earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. Made from clay, a natural material extracted from the ground at quarry sites. Uses energy for manufacture. Not usually accepted for recycling due to high costs, but can be crushed and recycled into a range of useful products. Can be reused and upcycled. Over the years, we have built up an eclectic collection of second-hand ceramics that we have purchased from our local charity shops.

Plastic Some plastics are biobased, made from starch, vegetable oils, but most are described as synthetic, being made from oil. These are not generally biodegradable and therefore end up languishing in our land fill sites. Some plastics break down to form microplastics; very tiny bits of plastic, not visible with the naked eye. These microplastics harm wildlife. Some plastic items can be reused and some recycled, but here at BordersEcoFlowers, we choose not to use plastic buckets or containers.

Metal Metals are mined from the earth as metal ore. Energy is then used to extract the metal from the metal ore. Metal contaimners are reusable and recyclable.

Wood The ultimate green product? Renewable and recyclable. Not waterproof - we place glass or ceramic containers inside wooden crates e.g. three jam jars in a small wooden crate. Biodegradable, (though there is a question mark over the toxicity of wood preservatives). O.K. for dried flowers.

Basketware Renewable and recyclable. Good for dried flowers. Local basket weavers create works of art using British grown willow.

Plant-based Confusingly called plant-based plastics, some of which are compostable. Becoming more popular in food industry. With advances in technology, these types of products will surely filter through to the floristry industry.

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2. Mechanics

Chicken wire See ‘metal’ above. Versatile and reusable for the florist. We find the larger aperture mesh (50mm) to be ideal.

Pin holder See ‘metal’ above. Reusable. Can be found in vintage, charity shops.

Floral foam Surely, the worst choice possible. Oil-based product, breaking down into microplastics, not biodegradable.

Glass beads See ‘glass’ above.

Reel/stub wire See ‘metal’ above. But reel wire often comes on a plastic spool!

Gravel Reusable. Extracted at quarry sites.

Stems e.g willow Sustainable, easy/cheap to grow your own, compostable.

Lentils/ Chick peas etc Plant derived. Compostable. Lentils are produced in many countries of the world including Canada and much of Asia. Chick peas are produced in India. Reusable if kept dry. Holds dry stems in place as well as being decorative, good for an Autumn vibe.

Moss Some commercially shipped from New Zealand. We prefer to rake moss from the shady areas of our grass. LIving and growing in the damp, cool Scottish Borders, this is a crop we grow well!

Fruit and vegetables Sustainable. Quirky arrangements using pumpkins, gourds, aubergines.

3. Ties

Raffia Made from leaves of Madagascan palm. Compostable. Best undyed to avoid confusion with synthetic dyes.

Cotton twine Cotton fibres come from cotton plants which are grown particularly in India and China. Biodegradable.

Plastic ribbon Not an option for us. Here in Scotland, much of the tartan ribbon is made from oil-based polyester.

Velvet Not straightforward. traditionally made from silk, but now replaced with plastic based polyester or nylon.

Jute / Hessian Natural product from fibres of the jute plant, that is grown in Bangladesh and India.

Silk ribbon Natural product. We use plant dyed silk ribbons from Northern Hands, just down the road in Newcastle.

Tartan fabric Popular here in Scotland, we make our own ribbons by ripping up woollen tartan fabric.

4. Wrappings and labels

Paper sleeve. Made from wood pulp. Recyclable and compostable.

Cardboard label (parcel tag). Made from wood pulp. Recyclable and compostable

Plastic wrapping oil based. Not acceptable for us.

Conclusion

For the planet-friendly farmer/florist, the act of growing the flowers in a sustainable manner is only half the story. Just as complicated is the second half of the operation i.e. the floristry part, during which a wide variety of materials are used as containers, mechanics, ties, and wrappings and labels. It is not easy to score different materials on account of sustainability. However, I hope that the above list gives some idea of the decisions we face in an attempt to make our floristry truly sustainable. It is only with constant attention to these issues, can we attach the ‘sustainable’ tag to our flowers.

Bridget. Bevan

BordersEcoFlowers, The Moorhouse DFuns

The Scottish Borders is a wonderful place to make your wedding vows, whether you are planning an intimate gathering or a large family get-together. From magnificent castles to glorious beaches, quaint village halls to windswept moors, there are memorable locations to create the event of your dreams, each with its own unique features.

How then do you go about choosing your floral decor? We understand that it can be a little bewildering when scrolling through the endless snapshots of bouquets and buttonholes, and you may feel a little intimidated approaching a florist if you don’t know your roses from your ranunculus. We are often asked to provide flowers according to a colour theme, from cool greens and whites to fiery pinks and oranges, and for the most part we are able and happy to oblige.

However, I want to suggest that you adopt a different approach to choosing your florals and possibly other decorative accessories too. This approach does away with a colour dominated theme, and instead focuses on the time of year that you are getting married. This way your florals will be strictly seasonal and will ooze vibrancy and freshness. They will have that ‘just picked from the garden’ style; a style that suggests that your florist has simply strolled down the garden with snips and a bucket, cut a handful of stems, and then created the most glorious and unique bouquet. In fact, that is exactly what we do here. Our flowers do not arrive here on the back of a lorry from Holland!

I digress. Back to the idea of wedding themes. Firstly, let’s take each month and give it a seasonal name, then we’ll put some flesh on the bones.

January is Mid Winter July is Mid Summer

February is Late Winter August is Late Summer

March is Early Spring September is Early Autumn

April is Mid Spring October is Mid Autumn

May is Late Spring November is Late Autumn

June is Early Summer December is Early Winter

Now we have a description of each month, let’s look at a few examples.

For a late Winter wedding, let us evoke the aura of the Scottish Borders on a crisp frosty morning. From the forest, we bring in the iconic and aromatic Scot’s pine, a nod to the wild moors of the local landscape. From the hedgerow, we bring in the knarled stems of hazel dripping with swaying catkins. And from the garden, we bring in buckets and buckets of pure white snowdrops, with a scent as sweet as honey. Team these up with soft white candles glowing in the winter darkness, cosy woollen textiles and rough sawn logs ready for the stove. A late Winter wedding, bringing the outside in.

In May, we celebrate our wild flowers. So for a Late Spring wedding, let’s make use of those underrated beauties that are never seen in the shops of the High Street florists. Think tall spires of foxgloves, the soft blues of forget-me-nots and bluebells and the charming pinks and yellows of campion and toadflax. Pop these into an eclectic mix of whicker baskets and wooden trugs or tie up with jute twine to make gorgeous rustic posies for your bridesmaids. A late Spring Wedding, bringing the outside in.

January-Mid Winter

February-Late Winter

March-Early Spring

April-Mid Spring

May-Late Spring

June-Early Summer

July-Mid Summer

August-Late Summer

September-Early Autumn

October-Mid Autumn

November-Late Autumn

December-Early Winter

In November, the light is low with cool, misty mornings for a late Autumn celebration. Start with the muted colours of architectural seed heads and leaves in golds, chocolates and coffees. Add hints of colour from our harvest of dried flowers hanging in the Bothy. Complete the picture with bold splashes of colour from bright orange pumpkins and gourds. Team up with a seasonal menu of warming parsnip soup and trays of hot roasted vegetables, cooked straight from the garden. A late Autumn wedding, bringing the outside in.

And so on! Think daffodils for Early Spring, roses for mid Summer and blackberries for early Autumn. Don’t be tempted by the repetitive images on social media. The botanical world has so much more to offer than the ubiquitous roses and gypsophila combinations. Aim for floral styling that reflects the glorious gardens and wild landscapes of the Scottish Borders. This will give you a coherent theme that links your venue to the location. And by planning your wedding flowers in this way, you can be sure that, at whatever time of year you get married, your flowers will be seasonal, as nature intended. Your floral displays will establish a statement of the time of year of your wedding. And that time of year will always be special to you. In years to come, the sight and scent of a particular type of flower will evoke memories of your special day. Bring the outside in!

Happy wedding planning,

BordersEcoFlowers, The Moorhouse, Duns

For flower growers aiming to reduce time spent weeding (and/or the use of weed-killer), laying down plastic landscape fabric may seem like a perfect solution. Do you love it or loathe it?

The lovers use it

• as an underlay for paths, with for example bark or gravel on the surface. The fabric prevents the gravel or bark from sinking into the soil below. It also (apparently) discourages weed growth by reducing light to the weed seeds in the soil.

• as cover on flower beds, with holes cut into it for the plants to grow through. The aim is to reduce weed growth between the individual plants.

The loathers

• dislike introducing plastic ( basically made from oil) into the garden.

• dislike its appearance in flower beds (It can be covered with aesthetically pleasing bark mulch, but that rather defeats the purpose. The pieces of bark break down, of course, to produce a fine, high-quality seed bed, just ready for incoming weed seeds)

• find that it disintegrates (rather than degrades) leaving frayed edges and plastic strands around the garden that wrap around your rake. I even found that our local sparrow population had picked up stray plastic strands to make their nests. (Ugh!)

• find that it encourages mice and voles, effectively giving them covered walkways, where prey, like owls, cannot reach them.

• realise that it takes cash from the ‘plants’ budget.

• find that it becomes invaded by canny perennial weeds, like couch grass, whose pointed new shoots can pierce the woven fabric, after which they can romp away with little competition.

Plastic landscape fabric infested with nettle roots

You will probably have guessed that I am in the latter category, but in addition to the niggles listed above, I believe that using landscape fabric has another major disadvantage for the flower grower, in that it has a detrimental effect on the fertility of soil below. Of course, my ideas are only a theory, but let me, at least, explain my logic. It is the premise of the organic gardener that healthy soil produces healthy crops. The soil is a complex ecosystem, with millions of living, breathing microorganisms in each cubic centimetre. It is these microscopic species that maintain soil fertility as they continually break down organic matter to small simple compounds, that can be readily taken up by plant roots. Like you and me, these precious soil microorganisms need oxygen, from air, to live. So it follows that if we cover much of the surface of the soil with impermeable plastic, the gaseous exchange between the atmosphere above and the soil below, will be reduced. As shown in my sketch below, reduced oxygen in the soil will eventually lead to a depleted population of microorganisms, limiting the availability of plant nutrients and thereby resulting in reduced plant growth. Remember also that plant roots, themselves, are living structures, requiring oxygen to grow, and by laying down landscape fabric we risk starving them also of crucial nutrients. The gardeners friend too, the humble earthworm needs to come to the surface to find food in the form of dead organic matter, particularly in wet weather. Lets not suffocate or starve our wiggly friends!

In conclusion, I realise that some flower growers love plastic landscape fabric, but for me, I absolutely loathe the stuff!

Happy flower growing, Bridget.

..

For years, church flower arrangements have relied on imported blooms and plastic mechanics. Now, a big shift is needed to adapt to more sustainable alternatives. Here, I suggest four fast-growing shrubs, one for each season, which planted in the church grounds, would provide a ready supply of long stems to create some homegrown material.

My selection is

• not fussy about soils or site. (We grow on top of a windy moor in the Scottish Borders).

• readily available from garden centres and cheap to propagate from hardwood cuttings.

• vigorous, producing abundant stems of half a metre or so, each season.

• will tolerate growing in grass - so for easy maintenance, plant just wide enough to get the mower in between.

For Spring. Try the humble flowering currant, (ribes sanguineum). Lots of similar varieties available. Pink flowers.

For Summer. My selection has to be the buddleia. Often maligned as a weed growing on waste ground and even derelict buildings, the flowers are scented and come in a range of colours - pinks, mauves and whites. Adored by butterflies.

For Autumn. Try fuchsia. Graceful arching branches with red, white or pink flowers.

For Winter. Go for dogwood here. Cornus sanguinium, the red stemmed dogwood is one of the best, but any variety will give you masses of coloured stems to team up with evergreens. You could leave a few stems unpruned ( see below), and these would give you useful white flowers in the following summer.

By cutting the stems for flower arranging, (cut right at the base even if you have to shorten the stems for your arrangement) you are effectively hard pruning each shrub. And that is exactly what is required to maintain a constant supply of cuttable stems. Basically, you are coppicing - cutting all stems to ground level (or thereabouts) to encourage fresh new growth. The timing is important!

RULE Ensure that all stems are cut to ground level AFTER THE SEASON OF INTEREST.

So, for our flowering currant, it flowers in Spring. Therefore any stems that are left should be cut to ground level in Summer. New growth will shoot up during the autumn months, ready to cut the following Spring, and so the cycle continues. Like wise the buddleia should be cut to ground level in Autumn, the fuchsia in Winter. and the dogwood in Spring. Don’t be too disheartened if your shrubs provide you with only a few cuttable stems in the first years. Like many plants, they will take a little while to establish.

In time, these four wonderful ‘woodies’, one for each season, will give you a supply of tall, homegrown stems, all ready to place in a vase, jug or urn and thereby give your church a truly sustainable floral display!

P.S. And if you feel like doubling up, try

- the yellow flowers of forsythia for spring. Looks great with flowering currant, (the rhubarb and custard of the spring garden!).

- glorious scented flowers of mock orange (Philadelphus) for summer.

- silvery foliage of senecio for autumn. Many different kinds here. The one you want is senecio ( now called brachyglottis ) ‘Sunshine”.

- and another coloured stem for winter, try Salix alba ‘Britzensis’ a type of white willow, so called because of the pale colouration on the underside of the leaf. You could go one step further with this one - the bendy stems are perfect for creating Christmas wreaths. Now there’s a thought.

Happy flower growing! Bridget.

The other day, I had a little trouble completing a form. Simple enough, it asked for my occupation. Maybe ‘florist’ would do, I thought. Sure enough, I arrange flowers into bunches and bouquets, I create arrangements for gifts, weddings and events, and in December, I make lots of Chrismas wreaths. But, unlike most florists, I don’t have high street premises. I don’t import my flowers from Holland, or further afield for that matter. I don’t have boxes of Oasis, (a single use plastic) to stick stems into, and I don’t create arrangements from prescribed lists ( 5 of this, 7 of this and 10 of that). So I felt that the term ‘florist‘ wasn’t such a good description after all.

The next term I considered was ‘flower farmer’. Just like those working the fields around us, I use the land to produce crops. Not sheep and cows for me, but instead flowers are my crop. However, my little patch of Berwickshire doesn’t seem large enough to warrant the grand name of a ‘flower farm’. Our growing area is little more than the size of a couple of tennis courts, though we do pack the plants in tightly. I don’t have a tractor, just a spade and fork from the Zero-waste shop in Dunbar. I don’t spray my crops with chemical pesticides and fertilizers. We have a small flock of hens and ducks that do the job. No, by no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a farmer.

What about ‘market gardener’ then? Now that seems more like it. My nails are mucky, my boots are muddy and my jeans have gone through at the knee. In the potting shed, you will find rows of clay pots, hoes, trowels and sieves. And outside you will find row upon row of plants. But these are not plants that produce fantastic fruits and nutritious vegetables like the market gardens of yesteryear. No, my plants produce (mainly) flowers from pinks to paeonies, and roses to rudbeckias. So I had to discard the ‘market gardener’ label too.

So, I was left with no other option than to invent a description for myself. I needed a term to convey the idea that I grow flowers, here in our garden in the Scottish Borders, and then I cut them to make posies, bouquets and all manner of arrangements. I guess like a state of the art car, I am a hybrid; a grower and an arranger. And can you guess what term I came up with? Well the next time I need to state my occupation, I shall type in the box ‘Gardener florist’.

1 Buy fresh

There is no doubt that fruit and vegetables harvested from your garden, or bought from your local farmers markets, are infinitely fresher than those shipped in from abroad. Fresh homegrown produce therefore has the longest ‘use by’ date. Not surprisingly, the same is true for flowers. For each of us, the freshest bunch is the one that travels least - straight from our garden and into the vase. Their poor cousins, the imported flowers, will have been tightly packed into cardboard boxes, travelled thousands of miles in the hold of an aeroplane, languished for hours in a warehouse and sweated it out on the shelves of a (warm) supermarket. They are simply not the freshest faces in town.

2 Clean Container

Your container - vase, jar or jug must be super-clean. A quick scrub with baking soda is probably the most environmentally friendly solution. (We welcome advice on this). If you are not prepared to drink out of the container yourself then don’t expect your flowers to drink from it and stay healthy.

3 Clean water

Here at BordersEcoFlowers, we intentionally grow our flowers without chemicals, no chemical fertilisers, pesticides or weed killers. To us therefore, it is an anathema to add a cocktail of chemicals to the water in the vase. Those little sachets of chemicals (called flower food – yuk) were basically invented for busy American housewives, who couldn’t find the time (surely no less than a minute or so) to change the water in a vase. A quick recce of the internet throws up some intriguing recipes for homemade preservatives (e.g. sugar, bleach, lemon juice, white vinegar, 7 Up and even copper pennies! Should you fancy yourself as a scientist, you could do some experiments to see which was the best. We follow two simple rules. Make sure that there are no leaves below the water line (or they just go rotten) and change the water each day. H20 is King!

4 Clean air

Your grandmother may have told you never to display a vase of flowers next to the fruit bowl, and you probably dismissed here as an old wife telling an Old wives’ tale. In fact, your dear granny was correct. Her words of wisdom should be heeded. When fruit ripens, it gives off a gas called ethylene. This gas is colourless and odourless, so us humans cannot detect it. Fortunately, ethylene is not harmful to humans but plants, on the other hand, are rather more sensitive. Basically, ethylene causes premature ageing. What that means for our vase of flowers is that the gas stimulates petal drop and the formation of seeds and a seed pods. Having enjoyed our floral display for just a few days we complain that our flowers are ‘over‘ and we fling them in the bin (hopefully the one destined for the compost). In short, keep your flowers away from ripening fruit.

5 Keep cool

Overheating causes us humans to dehydrate and the same applies to cut flowers. Back to the science again. A higher temperature means that more water evaporates (it is called transpiration) from the leaves. The plants roots cannot take up water fast enough to replace that which is lost. The result is that the poor plant wilts. So don’t put your vase of blooms by a radiator or on a sunny windowsill. Move them to a cool place at night.

The days are lengthening and it is time to sow seeds for this summers blooms. In previous years, we would line up rows of plastic seed trays, fill them with peat-based compost and stick in plastic labels.

These days, we do things differently. Now, we are peat free and plastic free. Our seeds are sown into soil blocks. Using a nifty little device, the soil blocker, we make hundreds of cubes of pressed compost and pop our seeds on top. Alternatively, you could try making newspaper pots, using cardboard kitchen roll tubes or coir pots. For labels, we use wooden lolly sticks. It is now 50 years since the botanist and TV presenter, David Bellamy, warned that using peat was destroying precious ecosystems, and alternatives should be sought. Over the years, peat-free composts have been criticised for there variable quality, but they are now much improved. As an eco-friendly garden, we are proud to say that Borders Eco Flowers is entirely peat-free.

In Scotland, roses do not flower in February! Robbie Burns himself reminded us of the seasonality of our favourite flower in his poem ‘O my luve is like a red, red rose.’ As a ploughman in Ayrshire, It is likely that he was referring to our native dog rose, Rosa canina which he would see growing wild in the hedgerows. The dog rose has pink flowers but the buds to which Burns refers are indeed red. Burns records the month that the dog rose flowers in the second line of the poem ‘That’s newly sprung in June ‘.

Nowadays, we have come accustomed to buying roses all year round and to satisfy our need for red roses on Valentine’s Day a staggering 8 million stems will be imported into the UK this February. These are grown in countries located near the equator; Kenya, Columbia, India, Tanzania and as flowers are perishable, they cannot be transported by boat. Instead, they are flown almost 4,000 miles in refrigerated containers, mainly into Heathrow, and then transported 300 miles up the A1 to our supermarket.

With the challenges of climate change clearly focussing our minds, perhaps it is time to find beauty in our indigenous flora. We cannot enjoy the Dog rose until summer but surely Burns, himself an acute observer of the natural world, would urge us to seek out those plants that thrive in our Scottish landscape in late winter. As the days lengthen, our gardens and landscapes become covered with blankets of clear white snowdrops and yellow aconites. In the hedgerows, hazels bear catkins and evergreens like viburnums and mahonia add another dimension. For a truly personal Valentines Day offering, pop out to the garden, and pick a handful of stems - flowers, leaves, seed-heads so in 2020 your Valentine can enjoy a gift of nature that is grown here not flown here.