Fresh flowers bring colour and life to any room. Their natural charm softens hard lines, makes a room feel cared for, and can easily enhance your home’s best features. Simple advice and clever tips can help you get the most from flowers, even on a small budget.

Presenter: Julian Fisher (JF)
Guest: Kate Kenyon (KK)

JF: Good afternoon and welcome to the Lifestyle channel of webchats.tv. I’m joined today by Kate Kenyon from the Flowers and Plants Association. It’s spring; it’s the time of year to start talking about flowers, about plants and how we use them. Some simple tips?

KK: Absolutely, yes there’s some here to show you today

JF: Some clever tips for spring and some advice on how best to buy and how to arrange and how to use them. A variety of subjects we’re going to cover, I know a lot of you are joining us from various websites and have submitted a number of questions already, so without further ado we’ve got a lot to cover, so we’ve got a whole range of topics to discuss, but it’s Friday afternoon –

KK: It is Friday afternoon, thank God at last

JF: Absolutely. Going home this afternoon, might want to buy my wife some flowers; it’s just a simple matter of a dozen roses isn’t it? I think most men naturally tend to assume, it’s Valentines, a dozen red roses, want to say sorry for something, a dozen red roses. A little bit lacking in imagination I can appreciate

KK: I have to say this is one of the nations favourite flowers, this is a beautiful example of a really gorgeous red rose called Extase, smell that

JF: Oh that’s beautiful

KK: Fantastic, it’s absolutely beautiful, but I have to say it’s not the nation’s women’s favourite flower. The favourite flower for people is roses yes, lilies but also tulips at this time of year. I wanted to see if you were up for a game of let’s make my wife something more original?

JF: As long as she’s not watching and I can pretend that I bought them and – absolutely let’s go for it

KK: The thing is it’s not very difficult to make flowers yourself and to make them look really quite simple and make them look quite chic at the same time. So –

JF: Chic is not a word my wife would normally associate with me so let’s go!

KK: Ok, right. What you’re going to need for this, what I’ve got here are white tulips, they’re abundant at this time of year, they’re really good value for money, you can get them anywhere, market stalls, florists, supermarkets, wherever’s closest to you. When you’re buying flowers, particularly tulips, make sure they’ve got good strong colour on them. You’re looking, make sure the foliage is nice and green, no yellow bits, nothing like that. Nice strong head of colour as well. Make sure they’re not too green because they’ll never open properly otherwise. Right

JF: Ok, what am I doing?

KK: Take five in your hand

JF: Ok, I have five white tulips

KK: It doesn’t look like it’s going to make a bouquet but trust me this is going to make a bouquet. What I want you to do is when you make a hand tied bouquet, what you have to do is spiral all the stems around, and what you do is you take one, you take another and you cross them over. Now what you do if you’re a florist is you keep going until you’ve got an absolute handful

JF: So you don’t actually twist them round?

KK: No, so much as spiral them

JF: These are all cut at the bottom, we’ve got a question in from Ben, he wants to know “is it true that if you cut flower stems straight and not at an angle, they won’t last as long?” surely it doesn’t matter how you cut them?

KK: It’s absolutely true. What you’re doing when you cut flowers at an angle is that actually get a greater surface area than if it was flat, and that means that flowers can basically take up more liquid. When you do get your flowers home if you basically cut a little bit off like that, you saw I didn’t cut very much off, but that’s all you need to make sure your flowers last that extra bit longer, which I’m sure your wife will appreciate. So anyway we’ve got these flowers –

JF: Not only am I coming home with flowers and tips as well, she’s going to be so impressed!

KK: She’s going to want the husband back she really married isn’t she? Now these are hosta leaves, I got these – you can get these out of the garden, you can buy them in florists, in garden centres as well. Now what you’re going to do is basically you add one - think of triangles; add another one round the side, and then add the final one round the other side. So it looks like that, you can see what I’ve got there is they seem to be pushing their way out of these flowers like that.

JF: Yours slightly better than mine I must admit

KK: Pull that one round it will be fine. There you go, you can fiddle with it, if it doesn’t come out right first time just keep playing. A piece of tape for you. Now ok this doesn’t look like a bouquet does it, it’s a bit small but I’m going to show you what I’m going to do. So basically just wrap your tape around the tulips, now would she be impressed if you came home with that?

JF: It’s kind of more on the posy side

KK: Yes. Now to make this into a proper bouquet is you keep doing this. Now I’ve got some here that in true Blue Peter fashion we’ve done earlier, they’re all the same as you can see, all we’ve done is we’ve repeated this so that we’ve now got six little bunches. You know what I was saying earlier about spiralling stems, you do exactly the same and you just keep spiralling them, one on top of the other and what you’ll find is it’s going to look beautiful when you put them all in together.

JF: We had a question here from Marie who wants to know “What are the trendy flowers?” I mean tulips are gorgeous, this time of year they’re fantastic, are they particularly in vogue at the moment?

KK: They are, very very trendy, particularly white flowers. I’ve been reading that it is very very chic, and actually the thing about it is if you block colour like this, if you’ve got a bouquet of all one colour it looks bigger than it actually is, it looks more expensive, so if you’re on a tight budget this is definitely the way to go.

JF: Ok we have had another question here from Rob who also wanted to know about mixing up colour schemes because like you say I think the idea of block colour works better, and most bouquets are a bit of red, bit of yellow, bit of orange and everything just thrown in, and that to me looks a little classy.

KK: Yes I mean the thing about colour combinations is that you need to think about it very carefully, you can either do it one of two ways, you can either go for tonal which is where you’ve got similar shades of one colour, so you’ve got dark pink, light pink and very very pale pink together or go for opposing colours, so yellow and blue for example are very strong opposing colours, yellow and purple, now that’s a really bright impactful look, that’s going to really knock ‘em dead.

 

JF: Ok let’s go through some questions, we are getting loads in, please keep entering those questions. We had one just came in then from Michael who wanted to know “How long should a bunch of flowers last?”

KK: Right this very much depends on the sort of flowers. Spring flowers are beautifully scented, they’ve got fantastic colour but they don’t last as long as some flowers. This bunch you should get a week, ten days out of

JF: That’s quite a long time

KK: Yes if you treat them well they will come out, ten days really. Certain flowers, if you really want long-lasting flowers, carnations and chrysanthemums, you get a month out of them, easily

JF: Ok, this is the time of year of course when spring is in the air, weddings are being planned. We had quite a few people who have joined us from various wedding sites, so Julie wants to know, she’s getting married in August, planning on having a wedding that’s quite personal to me and my husband, paying for it themselves on a fairly tight budget – can you give me some tips for her and her bridesmaid’s bouquets, she loves roses and tulips but I have no idea what’s in season in August or what works well together in a bouquet? I mean spring, tulips – not going to be around in August?

KK: I have to say I’m sorry tulips in August – you can get most flowers at most times of year now, you would be hard pushed to get tulips, you might be able to get some but the thing is they won’t be a brilliant standard or quality because they will have had to be flown in from other parts of the world. They may not necessarily be as strong as they are right now. You can certainly get roses though, don’t ever think you can’t go without roses; you can get roses at any time of the year these days. When it comes to making something personal though, you have to almost go back a step and stop thinking about what kind of flowers you want but actually look at what kind of person you are, and what kind of wedding you’re trying to have. I mean this bouquet that we’ve made here is quite chic and quite elegant, if you feel you’re a chic and elegant kind of person – or you’d like to be on your wedding day – brilliant, go for that. If you’re more fun loving, if you feel that you’re more of a party animal, how about these? I’ve got the most wonderful bright pink gerbera here, and look at the colour on that, you couldn’t get more of a contrast.

 

KK: It’s about finding out what sort of a person you are as a bride, what sort of colours you’re looking at and work from that. Any florist will be able to help you with the technicalities of what’s in season

JF: Brilliant, we’re going to take a very very quick break now and when we come back we’re going to have a few tips on presenting around the home, so join us again in a second on webchats.tv

- BREAK -

JF: Hello and welcome back to webchats.tv where joining me this afternoon is Kate Kenyon from the Flowers and Plants Association, trying to get through as many questions and tips and advice as we can on the subject of flowers and flower arranging. Ok, I’ve purchased my bunch of tulips, I’m going home to my wife with them, presume I just get home, grab a vase, plonk them in, stick them on top of the TV?

KK: Don’t you dare put them on top of the television! No I have to say if you’re going to get the most out of your flowers there’s some really good tips that you need to look out for. We talked briefly before about making sure the flowers are good quality, that they’re strong, they’re healthy, they’ve got a good scent, but obviously what you do to them when you get them home will influence how long they last

JF: These are pretty

 

KK: They’re beautiful aren’t they? These are narcissi and one of the very fashionable flowers, they’ve got a wonderful scent again, aren’t they fab?

JF: Very nice. The studio smells amazing today I have to say, absolutely amazing.

KK: But these are flowers that don’t like to be in a very warm environment.

JF: So on the telly is a no-no?

KK: Yes on the telly or any electrical equipment is a big no-no

JF: Or on the radiator

KK: Because if you’ve ever touched the television after you’ve had it on, it’s really really hot, and the air around it, you get a lot of static, these are things that kill flowers really quickly, so put them somewhere cooler and not only does the scent come out more but you’ll find they’ll last longer as well, so that would be top tip number one.

JF: Lasting longer, we had a question in from Nicki on tips on making cut flowers last longer, clearly putting anywhere near a heat source is a definite no-no?

KK: A definite no-no, there are other things you can do. First of all, when you get them home, as I said you make sure you cut a good chop off the bottom so you can see a large sharp, clear cut. When you put them in water, make sure you put them in a really really clean vase. I can’t stress how clean it has to be because bacteria is the number one thing that kills flowers off quickest, so if you make sure that the vase is really clean, use cut flower food if you get it, you know the little sachet that you get, make sure you use it because it does work. I’ve heard some brilliant old wives tales about using lemonade and coins and aspirin, but nothing is as effective as using that little packet.

JF: Now we’ve just had one in actually, talking about old wives’ tales, Helen wants to know “I’ve heard that if you put a coin in the bottom of a vase the flowers last longer” is that true?

KK: It isn’t true, it’s an absolute wives’ tale.

JF: Crushed aspirin, sugar?

KK: No. Sugar does work in part because what it does is it feeds the flowers.

JF: Hence the lemonade?

KK: Yes but the thing is it also feeds the bacteria in the water so it will actually hasten your flowers’ demise, so the cut flower food has been specially formulated so it will make your flowers last longer. Coins, coins belong in the moneybox!

JF: So not on top of the TV, we don’t just plonk in a vase?

KK: You can plonk in the vase as long as the vase has cold clean water. The other thing I’d say is when you get your flowers home make sure you put them somewhere where you can see them. A lot of people just put them in a vase on the windowsill in the living room, and that’s it they get forgotten about and they look nice but they die off and you’re left with a bunch of dead flowers. It doesn’t take much to take just a little flower like this, a little tiny daisy flower, and put it by your bedside or in a little vase by the bathroom sink, somewhere where it’s part of your everyday life and where you get up in the morning and it’s there looking at you.

JF: So it’s about personalising the home?

KK: Yes it is, your home is your castle so why not?

JF: Absolutely. So the location in the home, are there any particular - near sunlight, do some flowers like sun? Isn’t there something about tulips growing towards the sun?

KK: Yes the other thing is, we’ve talked a little bit about arranging flowers, the one thing is, you have to remember that actually flowers particularly tulips will continue to grow.

JF: I never knew that.

KK: Yes, up to two inches, that much.

JF: Really?

KK: Two to three inches. And these are stubborn flowers, these will grow towards the light, so no matter how you arrange them, they will continue to rearrange themselves until they feel like stopping. When you get flowers like tulips, again you’re talking about just a simple cut off the end, plop them in a vase like that, they’ll look beautiful. If you want them to grow straight, if you’re a fan of straight tulips, you need to put them somewhere where they’ve got a strong overhead light, even to the stage of leaving a light on in a room overnight, they will grow towards artificial light as well as natural.

 

JF: Ok well another old wives’ tale, Julie, thank you for your question Julie, we had some white flowers here, we had some red behind, mixing red and white is bad luck, I’ve not heard of that is it true?

KK: Yes it’s a very strong history within blood and bandages basically, you only have to think of films like American Beauty where there’s all that red and white, and red and white is a first world war hangover, it’s very strong within nursing communities and doctors, I know people who won’t mix red and white.

JF: We’re almost at St George’s Day, cross of St George, red and white?

KK: But there’s nothing to say that if you like red and white, you can have red and white. Red and white has been very fashionable for weddings over the last 18 months or so, so obviously some people out there like it

JF: Ok we’ve got a question here from Cerrian – “I love lilies” – hello Cerrian “but I’ve found the last couple of bunches haven’t opened fully before wilting.” I’ve seen this before as well, why does it happen?

KK: Yes I’ve actually got some lilies here

 

KK: Now this is a question of making sure that you buy flowers which are going to open. Now these as you can see are already reasonably open, but look at these top buds here, can you see that they’re not green, they’re not completely green, they’ve actually got some colour shining through, just starting to show through. Now it doesn’t matter if you’re buying these kind of lilies or the Orientals, the asiatics, as long as the bud, the top bud has got some colour on it, they will open. You need to make sure obviously that they’re in water, with food, the thing to watch out for is if you find the top bud is dead, is very very green, those lilies have actually been cut too early and you shouldn’t buy them, so do watch out and you’ll make sure you get flowers that serve their purpose

JF: Also don’t you have to watch out for the stain of lilies?

KK: Yes if you ever get lily pollen on you, and I have got so many jumpers with lily pollen on them, you can see from these, what I’ve actually done is I’ve taken out the stamens, I’ve taken out the lily bits, and if you take them out as soon as they open, not only do you not get the pollen on your hands, but you won’t get it anywhere else. If you do get it on yourself dab it off with sellotape, just dab it off like that. If it gets rubbed in you have to wash it in cold water and leave it to dry in sunlight. Something about the sunlight makes it disappear. Unfortunately if you wash it with cold water and detergent it sticks forever. So there you go, that’s lilies.

JF: So there’s another handy tip for you. We have a question here from Clare actually, everything we’re looking at here are largely cultivated flowers although the narcissi could grow in the wild, Clare actually says she loves local wild flowers but knows it’s illegal to pick them. Do any florists specialise in cultivating various types of wild flowers?

KK: It’s a bit of a hard question, I can understand why people like wild flowers, they have a natural beauty of their own. The thing is though, even if you were allowed to pick them because they haven’t been cultivated to be cut, these flowers have all been commercially bred so that if you do cut them they’ll last a long time. The thing with wild flowers is even if you did pick them, you won’t get more than sort of 24, 48 hours out of them before they sadly wilt. The way round it is to buy commercial flowers which have been developed from wild flowers. There’s things like anemones which you can get at this time of year. Anemone is a very common wild flower that does have a commercial cousin if you like, which looks very similar but you will get the vase life out of it without having to destroy the local environment to get it

JF: Ok, well look again we’ll leave that topic here, we’re going to take a short break and come back in a moment when we’ll be talking about the home and what colours to use around the home.

KK: And some simple tips to make it look a bit “wow”

JF: Excellent, the “wow” factor, join us soon on webchats.tv

- BREAK -

JF: Hello there and welcome back to webchats.tv. Joining me this afternoon is Kate Kenyan from the Flowers and Plants Association. We’re now going to deal with the issue of the “wow” factor, some simple design tips on how to introduce ordinary households items into the way we present our flowers so do you want to give us a few ideas on what makes a simple demonstration go “wow?”

KK: I do, I do. Often people think oh God I can’t buy flowers I’ve only got one vase at home and it’s my nans’ or you don’t like it very much, so you think “what am I going to put them in?” so it puts you off buying flowers which is a bit of a shame really isn’t it? So these are things from my own kitchen cabinet, two vases I got for Christmas and never used, shot glasses, strange bowl, sorbet dish, and a goldfish bowl

JF: Goldfish bowl, no goldfish!

KK: Thank God.

JF: We’ve got a question in from Nicki who says “I love the idea of flower arranging” – this is perfect for this segment “but I’m not sure I’m artistic enough”. How artistic does one need to be?

KK: How much do you need to enjoy your flowers is more of the question, you don’t need to be particularly artistic, you just need to have a go, and to prove this to you I’m going to take the shot glasses and I’m going to do something very simple. Now these are just literally shot glasses that I’ve got, and what I’m going to take is I’m going to take a rose . . .

JF: Please keep your questions coming in by the way while we’re doing this, any tips or advice from weddings to bouquets to layout design, please just keep entering questions. We’ve got one now, Trudy - how often should you change the water in cut flowers, I’d like to do it daily but if you’ve only ever got one sachet of plant food I suppose you need to leave it a certain amount of time?

KK: If you’re using commercially cut flower food you shouldn’t need to change them every day. Make sure the water’s very very clear to begin with, put half the sachet in, because the sachet actually makes up to a litre of water, so most people don’t need to use the whole sachet, it’s rather like double concentrate really otherwise, like drinking very strong squash. So basically you need to do it every three days and when you do change the water, all you need to do is literally run the vase underneath the tap with the flowers still in it and that will be enough to keep the water clean

JF: Ok well I hope that answers your question, back to Nicki’s question about creativity

KK: . . . right this is a simple display for a table, a mantelpiece, a living room, a windowsill, anything you like. One rose, one feather, now this was bought from a haberdashery store but you can get them anywhere. All I’ve done is I’ve cut it short, I’ve bound it with a little bit of nice bright pink wire, now this is Hobbycraft wire, you get it from craft shops, anywhere basically, and all you do is do that. Doesn’t look very grand on its own but I have some little friends for it, now what you do is you make sure they’re equal distant apart and push them all the same way –

 

JF: Again so I can imagine laid out at a dinner party that’s quite effective if you’ve got them laid across a long table or in between place settings?

KK: Absolutely if they’re roughly the same height, now look at that, you could have that anywhere in your house, it literally took me two minutes to make and it looks very arty, it’s all about making something personal, you could do this with any kind of flower, doesn’t have to be feathers, have a look in your local haberdashery stores, save bits of ribbon off presents, anything you like and you can make it really personal.

JF: That’s perfectly answered Karen’s question, Karen wants to know about personalising the arrangement, which we’re doing right here right now, thank you very much Karen. Any ideas on what Karen can use, she’s asking?

KK: Ok this one’s even easier, this requires one head of flowers and my goldfish bowl. Sadly the goldfish is no longer with us, bit of water in this, what I’m going to take is just one, this is one single head of hydrangea

 

JF: That’s a huge hydrangea

KK: I bought this in a local florist, you probably would have to go to a florist to get this rather than a supermarket.

JF: They won’t grow that big in my garden!

KK: But honestly it looks expensive but you’re buying one stem. I’m going to cut the head really really short, now this might – you might think oh God the flower won’t survive but actually it means a lot of water can go into the stem and they last a huge long time if you put them like this but to make it a bit more interesting, food colouring, might seem strange, but it works. This is green food colouring so we can get a bit of contrast going on

JF: Right

KK: I’m adding quite a lot because obviously I want you guys to be able to see it. Swirl that around, what I’m going to do, it’s looking a bit murky but very dramatic. This is to make a very easy, dramatic arrangement. Now what I’m going to do is just float that on top.

JF: Now just hold that up

 

KK: Now that is a very very simple arrangement that you can put in your own home, you can also use it for things like weddings, I know there are a lot of brides out there who are looking for really simple decorations for their tables, how simple could that be? You could even get your friends involved and make them yourself, it’s not complicated

JF: You’re talking about colouring the water, the water could be the colour of the theme of the dress –

KK: Absolutely

JF: Or whatever else

KK: I mean I chose green and white because it’s a good strong colour combination but there’s nothing to stop you doing shades of pink, you can get food colouring in any colour after all

JF: Well there you go Karen I hope that answers your question maybe you can throw the goldfish, well find another place for Goldie to live and do something like this, that’s absolutely wonderful. All kinds of flowers we’re looking at here -

KK: Yes

JF: Eva’s got a question, “What is the main criteria for choosing the right flowers?” I presume time of year must come into it?

KK: Yes I’d always say try to buy seasonally because then you’ll get more value for money, you’ll get stronger flowers, they last longer and they’ve got the scent as well. Often you’ll find flowers which are a little out of season won’t last as long, so try and find out what’s in season, ask your local florist, they should know, and they’ll find you something which will suit you.

JF: Ok, well thank you very much indeed, that’s wonderful

KK: That’s a pleasure

JF: It looks like a hugely expensive cocktail I might get in a very upmarket restaurant!

KK: And it’s only got one flower in it.

JF: Excellent. We’re going to take our last break now, we’ll be back to answer all your final questions, join us very very shortly on webchats.tv

- BREAK -

JF: Hello and welcome back to webchats.tv, our final section with Kate Kenyon from the Flowers and Plants Association. Surrounded here in the webchats studio by flowers, the smell is amazing, these lilies are certainly adding to it. We wanted in our final section today to really look at the glitz and glamour section, so really to make a bold statement, for an event, be it a wedding, be it a dinner party, something that really says absolutely wow and fantastic

 

KK: And again I’m still going to do this on a budget because I don’t expect people to spend as much money as Elton John does on flowers, so let’s do this in a realistic way shall we? What I’ve got here is three single stems of lilies, they’re quite nice ones, I’ve let them open out. The reason I’m using them is because actually although there’s only three stems they cover up a lot of space, they actually look very impressive as well. What most people find is they’ve got a vase which is actually very wide necked at home, often you’ve been given it as a present. The problem is it’s going to cost you an absolute fortune to fill it.

JF: I was going to say to fill that thing

KK: Well exactly, it’s a huge vase, but it can be done. So what I’m going to do is, we’re going to make a trick, now we call this a sellotape trick, I’m doing this with dark tape so you can see it at home, but obviously you’d do it with sellotape at home so it doesn’t show, and what I’m doing is actually creating a little cross hatch grid, rather like a noughts and crosses

JF: I’ll just hold that so you can see it, it’s effectively creating a grid across

 

KK: Well you can see that, you’ve got lots of holes, and that’s it. That’s all I’ve done. I know it looks horrible at the moment but honestly if you do it in sellotape you won’t notice it anyway. What we’re going to do is we’re going to use this to help support the lilies.

JF: Philippa’s got a question joining us this afternoon, she wants to know “What is it about flowers that makes them so uplifting, what is it about flowers, why do we have them around the home, what’s the psychological lift it gives us?”

KK: It’s partly to do with colour and partly to do with scent, I mean we’ve all been wowed in the studio here by just how beautiful the flowers smell, but it’s partly the colour as well. They have found that people that suffer from depression can be really lifted by colours like red and pink, they make your heart beat faster, they’re the colours of emotion and passion and that’s partly I think why people use them. They also bring us one step closer to nature, I mean after all we’re really designed to live in caves not high rise blocks of flats, so this is a way of bringing you closer to where you came from in the first place. Now as I say this design is starting to come along now, all I’ve literally done is I’ve put some leaves into the bottom here so that you can cover up the sellotape so you can’t see it, but that’s the simplest and quickest way to make a very impressive arrangement that will really dazzle friends. Of course if you do something big make sure you put it somewhere with a lot of space around it, you make something this big you don’t want to push it into a corner where it can’t be seen, give it enough space around it so people can look at it and appreciate what you’ve done

 

JF: That’s a table centrepiece; it’s not a windowsill it’s definitely not on top of the TV!

KK: No it’s definitely not, it’s something in the hallway, it’s something, if you make a tall piece, put it down low and then well people come in it’s at their eye line and people can really appreciate it.

JF: Talking of table centres, and weddings as we were earlier, I’ve got a question from Lindsay who actually had a legal issue from her wedding, because the flowers she ordered were the wrong colour from her local florist

KK: Oh dear

JF: Obviously, your big day, you’re in pink you want pink

KK: Yes absolutely, yes

JF: She doesn’t say what the colours were but they obviously turned up wrong – what recourse do you have in that situation?

KK: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they always say and the thing to do, you’re dealing with a live product here, the thing about flowers they’re not tins of beans, they aren’t prescriptive, sometimes they betray you, sometimes they die on you at the last moment so when you’re talking to your florist make sure that both of you agree what colour it’s going to be, if you can find out the variety of the flowers you’re going to be using that will limit the variants of colour you can get. Also if needs be choose a second option so if the florist does have a problem getting your flower she’s got an adequate choice for second place as it were and that way I don’t think anyone would be disappointed.

JF: We’ve just had a week in which we’ve had funerals and weddings, and there’s a question here that’s come from Umi whose asking what’s the difference between flowers for funerals and weddings, that may sound simplistic but actually white flowers I’ve seen at funerals and weddings.

KK: Yes

JF: Are there particular flowers to avoid at funerals or weddings, that are associated – lilies, weren’t lilies associated with death?

KK: Lilies are actually associated with innocence and fertility back as far as Roman times, the association with death comes from Victorians who obviously lost a lot of young children to illness and disease and they used to use white lilies to symbolise their innocence and purity, rather than death, that’s where the association comes from, but if you go back further they’ve been used in Roman times for weddings for their sort of purity and the festivities of them, so there isn’t necessarily any hard and fast rules about flowers, you can use what is personal to you. The thing about weddings and funerals is that they are personal events they’re about people and their lives, so choose things which are important to you,

JF: Ok well thank you very much indeed for that question, we’ve had a number of questions about the home as well and how to display in the home and where to display in the home, clearly it’s about getting value for money as well

KK: Yes

JF: If you’ve spent a lot of money on a big display – how long can we expect these things to last? Are there ways of just progressing that little bit longer?

KK: If you look after your flowers, keep them somewhere cool, keep them out of the way of radiators, electrical equipment and also bowls of fruit as well because they give off a gas which can actually accelerate the process of decay.

JF: Final question before we wrap up today, John wants to know, “What flowers last the longest?”

KK: Carnations and chrysanthemums, if you’re on a budget, go for modern colour and carnations and chrysanthemums, you’ll get a month out of them easily.

JF: John I hope that answered your question. I hope we answered as many questions as we could this afternoon, we’ve received many more than we could answer, thank you for joining us, thank you to Kate Kenyon from the Flowers and Plants Association for joining us this afternoon on webchats.tv. Would you like to give us the address of the site people can go to if they want more information?

KK: Yes if we haven’t had a chance to answer your question today then do have a look at our website which is www.flowers.org.uk, we’re always happy to answer personal queries

JF: Excellent, well thank you for giving us that information and as I say hopefully you’ll be joining us soon on webchats.tv, good afternoon.

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