Have you been to see your local flower farm?

If so, you'll probably have seen a field that has some plants growing, some flowers at the point of blooming, and some beds that are finished and waiting to be cleared or are covered in plastic or mulch. There might be a greenhouse and or a Polytunnel for a bit of undercover space.

If it's here in the south of England, then it will be looking at its best between May and September, with a limited range in the winter months.

But if you don't buy your flowers locally where will they come from?

The World wide trade in cut flowers is huge and worth Billions of pounds. 

Here in the UK we get through 3.8Billion pounds worth of flowers in a year (Source Oxford Economics report 2024) which is up lots on 2015 when it was 2.2 Billion pounds. 

This Map shows the route of most of the flowers as they fly round the world, with The US and the EU being the biggest importers, and then Holland, Kenya, Ethiopia, Columbia and Ecuador being the worlds largest exporters.

The majority of the flowers are grown in Ecuatorial Climates, with high light levels throughout the year. But they then need to be travelled to their destination by plane, or increasingly by sea.

54% of the UK's flowers are imported from Holland (through Holland)

23% come from Kenya

11% from Columbia

with the remainder coming from Ethiopia, Ecuador, Turkey, Spain, South Africa, Ireland and Morocco.

So how Fresh are your flowers?

There's lots more information about the flowers that come to the UK from Africa, in this report - link below

Made on earth, the 4000 mile flower delivery - BBC report by Jez Fredunburgh