What to expect from a FlowerBe Posy Subscription
If you are visiting this page you will have received a gift posy subscription or will be gifting yourself one of our 3/6 or 12 month subscriptions.
Our boxes will always come packed with a mixture of long-lasting stems and seasonal variety. We change our colour schemes on a monthly basis to ensure you're able to enjoy something different each month.
Our selection changes with what is available to pick on the farm and what we source from our sellers, so there's always something different to enjoy.
To learn more about the flowers that are included each month, head over to
www.flowerbe.co.uk/plantbio
If it's your first visit please scroll down to learn about how to care for your posy and check out our basic arrangement guide.
Have fun!
They've arrived!
At times stems will arrive dehydrated due to travelling in warm weather.
On arrival, snip the ends and allow your stems to rehydrate for a couple of hours before arranging.
Stems hydrate from a cut end as well as through the stem membrane, so ensure your first container is quite a full of fresh, clean water.
Your flowers are ready to arrange when the heads have perked up and the stems are no longer limp or weak.
preparing your flowers
Before arranging your flowers fill your chosen container with 2/3 of water.
Judge which stems will have leaves that will sit below the waterline and remove from each stem.
This helps prevent water going cloudy and bacteria forming which will shorten the vase life.
Change/Refresh water every 3-4 days.
Your posy suits a small vase best and so it’s important to keep water topped up and clean.
Check your water levels every few days and replace vase water with fresh water.
AFTERCARE
Our arrangements are built to last beyond two weeks and most stems are also suitable for drying.
We carefully select a mixture of long-lasting flowers to make up the best part of our posies.
We will always also include some stems with a shorter life span but with incredible scent or great seasonal beauty, so don't be surprised if some perish faster than others.
Simply remove spent stems when you change your water and rearrange your long-lasting ones.
Foliage
Fill your vase with greenery to create an initial support for the other stems.
Greenery is one of the most important elements in a design, a visual link for the all the other colours within an arrangement.
Filler
These are usually multi-stemmed branches with smaller flower heads.
Use these to fill the gaps between single, heavier stems and to fill out the arrangement.
Support
All of our flowers are beautiful and, depending on the season, could be stars in their own right.
Support stems have larger heads or are multi-stemmed florets. Dot these throughout and complement the seasonal Star flower.
Star
The focal flower and more often than not specifically seasonal to the month.
This will mostly likely be the most unusual in the selection we send and will come as a single stem.
Who wouldn't love flowers through the letterbox?
Cornflowers
Common Name: Cornflower
Latin: Centuarea cyanus
Variety: ‘Polka Dot Mixed’
Cornflowers one of the only ‘true blues’ of the flower world. We send these out in either tight bud or already in flower. The stems will arrive very limp but a few hours in water will see them perk up ready for arranging.
Cornflowers are one of the flowers that ‘die well’ often fading from electric blue to white before dropping their petals. This gives them an extended vase life so expect them to be interesting for around two weeks.
Cornflowers will not last in the vase for as long as some of the other summer stems. Remove them from the arrangement when they are spent and continue to enjoy your arrangement without them.
We grow a mixed variety seed on the FlowerBe Farm, but the dominant flower is the true blue.
Cornflower Facts
In the past the juice from the petals were used to make blue ink and water colour pigments. The colour ‘cornflower blue’ is named after this bright blue flower.
We will be selling cornflowers in our ‘Scatter Me’ collection from September. If you decide to grow your own you can use these in salads or in drinks as the flowerheads are edible.
Unfortunately, due to agricultural development and pesticide use cornflowers are nearly extinct in the wild. They do work well in planted wildflower meadow mixes so look out for them when you’re out and about.
In France, the Cornflower is the symbol of the 1918 Armistice as just like poppies it grew wild in Flanders fields. Along with the poppy cornflowers are also worn on Armistice Day.
Cornflowers are also known as Batchelor Buttons as they were worn to indicate that someone was unmarried and available!
Triplet Lily
Common Name: Triplet lily
Latin Name: Triteleia laxa
Variety: ‘Queen Fabiola’ (Purple). ‘White Star’ (White)
Triteleia is a fantastic seasonal star which we also use in our seasonal subscription flower box. Your flower will arrive mostly in bud but, in time, the umbel of single florets will one starry flower at a time.
We usually cut this stem slightly longer than the other ones in the posy and place it in the center of the vase. The buds should ‘jump out’ of the posy. You should get the chance to enjoy each single flower opening.
Triteleia are corms and are native wild flowers in Western United states.
Poppy Seed Head
Common Name: Poppy (seed head)
Latin Name: Papaver Orientalis
Variety: Various mixed seed
Poppies are one of the best-known flowers still growing wild in the UK. Poppies may be perennials or annuals and grow to 4ft tall in some cases. The beautiful flower heads come in a wide range of colours and sizes.
We could never include a flower head in your arrangement as the delicate flowers only last a few days before the petals fall to reveal a beautiful, structural seed head. We grow poppies just for this and pick it whilst it is still ‘in the green’. We include these intriguing seedheads in our boxes in June and July.
We grow a wide variety or Oriental poppies on the FlowerBe farm and collect our own seed from sowing the following year. Unfortunately, poppy seeds that do not mature on the plant will not be viable for scattering as they will not have germinated.
If you would like to grow your own, we will be selling our FlowerBe Farm seeds in our ‘Scatter Me Collection’ on sale from October this year.
Poppy Facts
Poppy seeds are edible and have had a culinary use for over 4000 years.
They are banned as a cooking ingredient in China, Taiwan and Singapore because of their potential to be grown as an opiate poppy.
Poppies are very easy to grow and a small handful of seeds can produce hundreds of plants - which is just as well as the flowers only last for a few days.
This has not gone unnoticed by the poets, who have used the Poppy as a symbol of death and remembrance for thousands of years.
Love-in-a-Mist (Seed pod)
Common Name: Love-in-a-Mist (Seed pod)
Latin Name: Nigella
Variety: ‘Miss Jekyll’s Light Blue’
As with poppy flowers, we would love to include this delicate beauty in your boxes, but the flowers would not last the journey, so we settle with sending their fantastic seed pods instead. The horned seed capsules almost look like aliens, so we use them to add textural interest to our July posies! The seed pods also dry beautifully so remember to keep them aside when your other flowers are spent.
Love-in-a-mist makes a beautiful cut flower so we would encourage you to look out for these when we start to sell the Scatter Me Collection. They are incredibly easy to grow and the flowers and seedpods can be used in both fresh and dry arrangements.
The common name “Love-in-a-mist” is given to the flowers because they are surrounded by a fine ruff of leaves which make the flowers look as if they are floating in a mist.
It is no surprise that Nigella represents harmony and love and that the flower is a symbol of the bonds that tie people together.
Germinated seeds are widely used in cooking as they have an intense almost peppery taste.
No matter if you are arranging the posy of flowers you received this month or have decided to forage for flowers or buy them, a few simple rules apply.
The simplest way to explain why we choose what we do in each box is to place our flowers into distinct categories for the month. We use the guide names Star, Support, Filler and Foliage.
How you use your stems in your own home is very much up to you but if you choose to use the guide, here are a few insights.
Your August Box
Summer is the most generous time for seasonal flower and herb varieties. We always include a wide range of long-lasting stems in our seasonal posies, but some months, it's impossible to include everything that is available.
We have written some short bios for the flowers, foliage and herbs that will be included in our August Botanical Posy – our selection changes with what is available to pick on the farm and what we source from our sellers – as a result no week will have the same selection!
August is particularly wonderful for fresh herbs. So expect to find Rosemary, Penny Royal or flowering mint in your box this month. Delicious!