The blooms are coming!

What a start to the Summer season for cut flowers - the weather can’t decide if it wants to revert back to winter or press ahead to full summer.

Muggy conditions are never good for growing, it encourages fungal diseases, for which our armoury is ever decreasing.

British flower sales have started solidly and the choice increases every week. Fragrant stocks start the season, chased by sweet williams, alliums and peonies. Then on their heels are iris, delphinium and alchemilla mollis, joined by larkspur, cornflower and lilies.

Of course, we are then hit by the huge fields of sunflowers, everyone smiling at the sun, these are now only a couple of weeks away. We then have lisianthus, antirrhinums, asters and gladioli.

We are never going to be a country growing large areas of roses and chrysanthemums due to their climatic requirements, but as you see, we do produce a marvellous choice of seasonal crops, all grown locally ('grown not flown', they say).

I have said it many times, but flowers are a very cheap 'feelgood factor', both those you grow in your garden and the bunches you buy.