Blooming Beautiful, an insight into the Irish flower industry with Anna Hogan from Seekings Flower Farm

The NeighbourFood Podcast

Spring is in the air, and with the flowers blooming it’s hard not to smile when you see these joyous bursts of colour. Not only do flowers brighten your day, but they are also super romantic and express emotions that sometimes words just cannot. We also love the creativity that comes with flowers from the colour, the shape, the textures and the beautiful fragrance which just heightens every sense. In many ways, flowers are even beyond beauty, with healing powers used in medicines and an integral part of a healthy ecosystem.

In this week’s NeighbourFood Podcast we speak to flower farmer Anna Hogan, from Seekings Flower Farm, in Ballymacoda. In the growing season, you will find row upon row of beautiful, Irish cut-flowers, all cultivated from bulbs or seed. Her nature-inspired bouquets are full of romance, colour and fragrance. Now it’s not just flowers you’ll find in her bunch, as she often compliments this with aromatic herbs such as lemon verbena, fennel, dill and mint, all of which further enhance their beautiful scent.

Anna is also part of the Flower Farmers of Ireland who are a nationwide network of Irish sustainable flower growers. It’s all part of the floral revolution, a movement mainly driven by female flower farmers who are connecting with nature, much like the farm to fork movement. And in many ways, this is redefining the global cut-flower industry, by producing much loved, locally-grown, seasonal, scented blooms and fresh cut foliage for people who love their flowers to look and smell as if they were picked from the garden this morning.

And that was the focus of our conversation, where we hear about the significance of flowers and why we feel so connected to them. What the Irish flower industry is like, as well as how much is imported and how much is locally grown? We learn that Irish flower farming is a growing sector in more than the obvious sense, but in terms of education, public awareness, social farming, pollination and green matters. And as spring is the perfect time to get planting, we also get a few tips for hobby gardeners like ourselves in starting to grow our own little slices of garden heaven.

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