Say it with flowers - just make sure you know where they came from | Alice Vincent on flowers

Bouquets from Kenya and the Netherlands bought in the UK carry a high environmental cost compared with outdoor-grown British equivalentsThere are certain bunches of flowers that linger like talismans in my mind. An armful of otherworldly amaranthus brought to a house party. The five fists of daffodils and bright-red, long-stemmed anemones wrapped in brown paper that came to my last book launch. Small handfuls of sweet peas left on the doorstep during my GCSEs by a kind neighbour in the village where I grew up.It should be so simple, sending people flowers: wander into the nearest florist, hand over your credit card and an address, job done. But doing it well takes thought, not least because flowers can carry a far greater carbon footprint than many people realise: it has been calculated that your standard bunch of imported roses, lilies and gypsophila (all stems that are grown year-round in the Netherlands and Kenya) create more than 30kg of carbon emissions. That's the equivalent of what a single tree can absorb, on average, in a year. Continue reading...