Cheering myself up with zero waste flower power

I've been feeling totally rubbish today, possibly overtired following the weekend's BritMums conference.  I've got a busy few days coming up, Mr C's at a long conference and to be honest, I'm feeling overwhelmingly disorganised and quite glum!

After a morning of sweeping and mopping the floors like a charlady - no, we don't live in a huge house, it just takes my procrastination that long to get into the swing - and working my way through the emails and four cups of tea, my mood still hadn't lifted.

There was nothing for it!

I took to the garden with a scissors. Not even my pruning shears.  Honestly, there was no time for such precision in getting the proper tools.

I was on an urgent mission to find something cheery amongst the flowerbeds!

I know I could have sat down on a bench and admired the Sweet Williams outdoors, but I was after mood-lifting prettiness, to give me a visual energy boost and supplement those mugs of tea, indoors!

As I dropped the cuttings into the vase, I acknowledged that this was something I now take for granted, but here I had a vase of flowers with:

no plastic packaging;
no rubber bands;
no plastic packet of flower food;
no paper wrap;
and zero flower miles. 

That's very different to the regular bunches of flowers I used to bung in my trolley at the supermarket.

I tell you, I was that excited thinking about how much crud I've saved on my floral habit, I also got snip-happy with the Alliums

There are lots of resources and discussions about growing food, encouraging us to keep it local and to avoid packaging, but its floral cousins get much less attention, even though almost 90% of cut flowers are imported into the country. So if you're looking for proper inspiration regarding what to grow in your garden or further information on buying British seasonal flowers, I recommend the following links.

Cut Flowers-Growing & Selection, The RHS
Choosing British cut flowers, Sarah Raven.
Growing cut flowers, BBC
Why buy British grown cut flowers, The Flower Co-Operative
British flower bouquets, Wiggly Wigglers

Now as for that glum mood, which inspired this blogpost in the first place.  I am very happy to say that it's lifted!

Here's to happy planting!