If you are buying roses, make them English roses

Posted on 07/09/2008

We’ve all heard of “The English Rose”, which we naturally associate with beauty, but the roses we buy in bouquets usually come all the way from Amsterdam. Strange when you think about it. On top of that English roses often have a much larger flower head, a greater variety of colours and are an exquisite smelling flower.

More of us are trying to buy locally

When you consider the number of miles our imported roses travel it’s a wonder we don’t hear more about our ignoring the traditional English Rose. More of us are trying to buy locally when it comes to buying our food. We’ve been learning about its large carbon footprints, due to the transportation required to import it from other countries when we could be buying British.

Surely we should start thinking the same way when it comes to buying flowers. If we can produce beautiful, English Roses, why are we buying from abroad? To some extent we’re being controlled by the Supermarkets and Flower shops that import flowers, but with the Internet comes choice. One of the great things about the Internet has been that it re-opens markets to local producers. They might not be able to compete with supermarkets on price due to economies of scale, but they can knock the spots off larger competitors on quality – and a more environmentally sound product.

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