Blooms, Beaks & Beets: Summer in the Garden

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the UK bursts into bloom, we celebrate British Flowers Week with flower farmer Georgie Newbery, who shares how to create stunning, sustainable bouquets from your own garden. At RHS Garden Wisley, Liz Mooney guides us through successional sowing for a summer full of salad crops, and at RHS Bridgewater, Carolyne Jones reveals how to turn your garden into a haven for nesting birds. From vibrant wildflowers to fledgling robins, it’s a glorious season of growth – and there’s still time to get involved. Host: Jenny Laville Contributors: Georgie Newbery, Liz Mooney, Carolyne Jones Links: Common Farm Flowers The carbon footprint of flowers Say it with British flowers study

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get your tickets for the greatest show in Earth at an RHS garden near you.
0:06.4	Where nature puts on an unforgettable performance of colour and fragrance to delight your senses.
0:13.2	Inspire your gardening adventures and entertain your own little stars.
0:17.4	Race you, let's go.
0:19.5	Catch Springs finest scenes while you can at an RHS garden near you, let's go. Catch springs, finest scenes while you can,
0:22.1	at an RHS garden near you.
0:24.0	Book tickets online for discounts,
0:26.0	plus under fives go free and under 16s of five pounds.
0:45.3	Take a walk around your garden or local park at this time of year, and you'll see the UK is bursting into bloom. From cultivated borders to forgotten verges, our landscape is lit up with homegrown beauty.
0:51.3	Even the wilder corners left to the quiet rhythms of the season put on a show.
0:57.0	Spikes of purple foxglove, digitalis perporea, reaching for the sky, fragrant froths of meadow sweet and cheerful ox-eye daisies swaying in the breeze.
1:07.0	These aren't just pretty faces. They're part of a living heritage of British flora that evolved to support our native wildlife and thrive in our unique climate.
1:17.3	Yet, despite this natural abundance, around 90% of the cutflowers sold in Britain are imported, mainly from countries like Kenya, Colombia, the Netherlands and Ethiopia.
1:27.8	These long-haul blooms come with a hidden environmental cost,
1:31.1	often grown in energy-hungry greenhouses,
1:33.8	reliant on heavy irrigation and fertilisers,
1:36.2	and flown thousands of miles before they ever reach a vase.
1:39.8	It's British Flowers Week,
1:41.3	a celebration of seasonal, sustainable, UK-grown flowers
1:44.9	and the passionate growers, florists and designers who champion them.
1:49.3	In today's episode, we're joined by Georgie Newbury, artisan flower farmer and founder of
1:53.8	common farm flowers in Somerset.
	...

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