Sustainability

Sustainability is at the heart of Cumberland Flower Farm’s purpose and products.

We grow cut flowers for homes, businesses and events in Cumbria using regenerative agricultural techniques with no chemical inputs to enable people to choose beautiful flowers for their life events that won’t contribute to the world’s climate crisis.

What is meant by ‘regenerative’?

We use soil focussed growing techniques. In farming these are increasingly referred to as ‘regenerative’ and in market gardening it’s often given the shorthand of ‘no dig’ to describe a low or no til method of growing; rather than ploughing we build a dense microbially rich soil by enriching the ground with mulch and cover crops. We mulch using our own compost and muck from the neighbouring farm to keep inputs local. We are not certified as Organic but adhere to their principles and are members of the Organic Growers Alliance.

No Chemical Sprays

Our flowers are grown without chemical fertilisers, pesticides or preservatives but this isn’t normal. There are many risks to a flower harvest and chemical applications are a common way of guaranteeing the crop and the quality, but after some research into the use of chemical sprays in the cut flower industry I was horrified at what I discovered. Not only are pesticides harmful to bees and pollinators, they also pose a risk to everybody in the supply chain who handle the sprays and the flowers often, like florists. By buying British flowers you can ensure that you have flowers in your home that don’t have an average of 10 chemicals on them. By buying ours you can ensure they don’t have any.

You can find out more about the use of chemical sprays in the cut flower industry on our blog.

Grown not flown

Outside our main growing season we buy directly from other British flower farmers in Lincolnshire and Cornwall. We never use imported flowers. This means our flowers have a low carbon footprint with an ethical provenance.

Why is this important? Imported flowers – which make up 80% of the flowers sold in the UK – have a huge carbon footprint. Researchers at Lancaster University have calculated that an imported bouquet has a carbon footprint of 30kg CO2, whereas a bouquet made of British flowers has a carbon footprint of around 3kg CO2 and a locally grown bouquet has a fraction at around 1kg CO2. Imported flowers are increasingly grown in Kenya, India, Colombia, outside of the EU’s safety guidelines on safe use of fertilisers, pesticides and preservatives which put the environment and the farm workers, as well as end users (that’s florists and consumers) at risk. Choosing British or locally grown flowers is an easy way to make an environmentally friendly choice without compromising on beauty.

You can read more about the carbon footprint of flowers on our blog.

Plastic free packaging

We have carefully sourced plastic free compostable wraps and labels.
Why? With such a low carbon product, we want our packaging to be as environmentally friendly as possible too. Our paper and cardboard is made from recycled sources, we don’t use plastic cellophane or plant based alternatives as the production process is not environmentally friendly.

And our flowers… by growing lots of pollinator friendly flowers without pesticides or chemical fertilisers we can honestly say that our flowers are bee friendly flowers. Many of our plants are grown from seed, including an increasing number of perennials, and we prefer to buy plants from British plant nurseries unless supply is only possible from overseas.

Peat free compost

We use peat free compost made with coir, and we trial alternatives made from more local ingredients.

Why does it matter? Boggy peat moorland doesn’t look very impressive; peat is a spongy soil made from decomposed ancient trees with an important ecosystem of lowlying plants and wildlife that won’t thrive anywhere else. These spongy bogs soak up rainfall slowing its run off into the valleys, reducing flooding. Most impressively though is the role these bogs play as a carbon store, with those plants living on top of it soaking up tons and tons of carbon and holding it safely away from the earth’s atmosphere in the peat below. Once it is cut into and exposed, the peat actually starts to release carbon in dangerous quantities. Peat is a finite resource so by using peat compost we’re using the carbon store up!