One of my favourite ways to display our scented garden roses at home is by putting them in random vases, jam jars, perfume bottles and displaying them on a shelf, fireplace or, as in this case, my bathroom. This can also be a lovely way of displaying garden roses down the centre of rectangular tables for a garden party or wedding.
Simple pleasures!

It's an exciting time of year for us on our English farm as we look forward once again to the start of the English rose and herb season.

As a British cut flower grower, the premier grower of cut English garden roses, we are well aware of the recent interest in buying locally grown, seasonal flowers and are delighted to have benefitted from the increased demand.

Buying locally grown flowers when they are in abundance makes perfect sense although there seems to be a misconception in some circles that flowers grown out of season and outside of the country are their poor relations and that flowers flown in from Africa are all bad!

Our farm in Nanyuki, Kenya is a force for good in the area and you may believe, as we do, that we need to support trade in Africa to help break the poverty trap.

Ethically, responsibly, sustainably produced flowers with provenance are what we need to look for in cut flower production, whether they are produced in the UK or overseas.

What about CO2 emissions I hear you ask? Well according to Wikipidia in 2004 (sadly hasn't been updated since) in the UK we used 9.79 metric tons per head per year compared to 0.31 metric tons per head per year in Kenya!

Saturday 28th February was the 1st anniversary of the Peace Accord in Kenya, brokered by Kofi Annan.

A minutes silence was held to mark the anniversary at 1 o'clock.

Our Kenyan farm supplied the hundreds of white flowers for the peace memorial which were used to mark this important day.

Thought you might like to see the actual trophy that we were awarded for 'Cut Flower Grower of the Year 2009' at the Grower of the Year Awards last week. It's shiny and silver and engraved with The Real Flower Company's name.

Thank you to all of our Realflower people; from the planting of the bushes all the way through to the wonderful floristry, well done everyone!

Thought you might like to see the actual trophy that we were awarded for 'Cut Flower Grower of the Year 2009' at the Grower of the Year Awards last week. It's shiny and silver and engraved with The Real Flower Company's name.

Thank you to all of our Realflower people; from the planting of the bushes all the way through to the wonderful floristry, well done everyone!

A Rosier Life Trust was set up to support the local Burguret community around our farm in Kenya with programes including school feeding, environment conservation initiatives, capital projects and education tours.
With food scarcity and high food inflation prices caused by the post election violence that occurred in Kenya over a year ago A Rosier Life Trust's primary aim at the end of 2008 was to ensure availability and provision of food for the children at the local schools. Without the support offered by the Trust's contributors the children would have gone hungry.

In September last year The Real Flower Company donated funds to the Trust to purchase two 2300 litre water tanks. One water tank was delivered to Burgaret Primary School and the other to Tigithi Primary School. The tanks will mean that children will not have to collect and carry water into school each day to enable their lunch to be prepared.

We are delighted to announce that we have won the award for 'Cut Flower of the Year 2009' at the Grower of the Year awards ceremony that was held last night.
The prestigious black tie awards dinner, otherwise known as the 'oscars of the horticultural world' was held in London at the The Royal Lancaster Hotel and the great and the good of the horticultural and agricultural worlds were out in force.

The Grower of the Year Awards are organized by Horticultural Week and Grower Magazine and celebrate the best examples of business excellence,technical expertise, innovation and personal achievement within UK production horticulture.

Thank you so much to all our customers who have supported us and helped us to spread the word about our very special cut scented garden roses - this is an achievement which we'd like to share with you!

We are delighted to announce that we have won the award for 'Cut Flower of the Year 2009' at the Grower of the Year awards ceremony that was held last night.
The prestigious black tie awards dinner, otherwise known as the 'oscars of the horticultural world' was held in London at the The Royal Lancaster Hotel and the great and the good of the horticultural and agricultural worlds were out in force.

The Grower of the Year Awards are organized by Horticultural Week and Grower Magazine and celebrate the best examples of business excellence,technical expertise, innovation and personal achievement within UK production horticulture.

Thank you so much to all our customers who have supported us and helped us to spread the word about our very special cut scented garden roses - this is an achievement which we'd like to share with you!

We're currently very busy pruning about 20,000 rose bushes at the moment along with another 4000 roses that we grow for their hips and foliage.
Pruning can start now until the middle to end of March.
This is also a good time to feed your roses with well rotten manure which can be applied as a top dressing or mulch - the roses love it.
Our herbs have taken a knock with the hard frosts so we are busy removing any die back and I'll also be doing this in the garden. If you need to replace any dead herbs it might be a good idea to wait until the chance of frost decreases towards the middle to end of April.

Fairtrade fortnight launches today and one has to applaud the good work that has been done by this organisation particularly in getting the supermarkets onboard and for ensuring that they pay fair prices.

Buyers for large companies wield an extraordinary amount of power over suppliers. They are highly trained negotiators and I speak from experience as I worked in various senior buying roles in the fashion industry for many years. I've lost count of the number of courses I've attended over the years to finely hone my negotiating skills!
I have witnessed some shoddy treatment of suppliers during the course of my career but I always viewed my relationships with suppliers as partnerships and it was always very important to me to ensure that the supplier was left with a good working margin and a fair deal (win, win as they called it on the courses!). For me it was really important to create a sustainable relationship with my suppliers and fairness is something I value highly.

Trading fairly is at the very heart of our business. Owning our own farms means that there is a short journey from our farms to our customers and, on our Kenyan farm, we are Gold members of the Kenya Flower Council and adhere to strict rules governing pay, health and safety, staff welfare etc.
Provenance is so important in everything we buy, whether it's clothing, chocolate, fruit or flowers. Knowing that it's been produced responsibly, ethically and sustainably regardless of whether it's produced in the UK or overseas is the key.

Gladys in the packing shed on our Kenyan farm.

This is a good article written by journalist and broadcaster Tim Harford for www.news.bbc.co.uk
economic patriotism in a downturn
It fits in with our view that its great to buy Britsh products when they're available but equally good to buy from overseas when they are not. The key is to make sure that your choice is based on good information about what you're buying and how it's produced.
The view that we should only buy local and seasonal products year round is in our view rather blinkered and the recent campaign to ensure that we buy only British flowers is a little flawed as there are many reasons (apart from keeping the country's thousands of florists in business!)as to why customers might want to buy flowers in the winter months.
Our farm in Kenya is a fine example of good practice in cut flower growing overseas. There are no heated glass houses as the climate is ideal for growing roses and the farm is a gold member of the Kenya Flower Council that has an internationally recognized and respected code of practice and is a good reference for anyone buying Kenyan flowers.
This is a photo of our Kenyan farm and one of the bicycles used for riding around the rose beds!

We finally stopped cutting roses on our Hampshire farm in November this year (or last year as it's now 2009!). We continue to cut many varieties of foliage and herbs throughout the Winter though.

Here are a few photographs of the last roses worth cutting along with some Wintery shots of our herb and foliage beds.

Happy New Year!
What a freezing start to 2009. It always amazes me that during such extreme temperatures there are plants and bulbs flowering. In my own garden this morning the fabulous Mahonia is looking very lovely with it's wonderful yellow tassles dazzling in the morning sunlight. The snowdrops and crocus's, of which there was no trace before Christmas, are close to flowering and the daffodils on the bank are now a good 6 inches tall.

Spring is just around the corner!

I love our worm sheds, they're a fine example of worm composting on our Kenyan farm. Our left over roses are scattered on top of soil containing thousands of worms who work their magic while having a fragrant feast and turn our roses into liquid fertiliser. Our rose bushes are then fed with this wonderful organic liquid which helps to keep them fabulously healthy!

Here is a little insight into how we test our of cut scented garden roses on our Kenyan farm. After picking they go into our vase life testing room. We simply put them in a vase of water without any flower food and then we leave them there to see how they perform.