< Freesia

Freesias are among the most popular and widely grown cut flowers in the world. This is due to their delicate scent and wide colour range including yellows, red, pinks, blues and white. Unlike most other flowers, where white varieties smell most strongly, if you want highly scented freesia look for pink and red. Buy freesia with at least one flower open on the stem. Make sure they have plenty of water and never let the stem ends dry out. Pinch out the tiny buds at the tips and remove old flowerheads to encourage new ones to open.

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Longiflorum Lily >

The white lily was the most significant flower symbol for Christians, as a symbol of purity. To the Chinese, lily means "Forever in love". In Greek poetry, the lily stood for tenderness.
Lilium longiflorum, commonly called the "longi" lily is highly perfumed but generally white only; although recent breeding breakthroughs have developed "longis" with softly-coloured centres. Remove pollen stamens by pulling them up out of the flower. This prolongs the flower's life as well. Use sticky tape to remove pollen, not water which will fix the stain.

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< Narcissus

All daffodils are Narcissus, which is the genus (family) name. However, most of us think of daffodils as the yellow single flowered, large trumpet ones, and call the smaller headed scented varieties, narcissi. The Isles of Scilly start the season off in October with tiny tazetta types. It moves up the country via Lincolnshire, finishing in April with large trumpet daffodils from Scotland. If you want to mix your flowers, leave narcissi in water on their own overnight first and do not recut the stems. Or use specially formulated cut flower food for mixing daffodils with other flowers.

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< Tulip

Tulip gets its name from the Turkish for turban, after its rounded form. The flowers come in every colour except blue and true black. Tulips are the third-biggest selling flower in Holland and are also very popular in the UK. In the middle ages tulipmania saw bulbs change hands for the equivalent of £4million pounds a bulb! Thankfully we can all enjoy tulips these days as they are one of the most readily available and good value flowers in season. Tulips continue to grow in water and will curve towards the light. This makes for some very interesting and natural-looking arrangements!

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Eucharis >

Eucharis (pronounced YOU-kariss) means charming in Latin. It is also sometimes known as the Amazon lily because of its Colombian origins. The flowers are pure white with a delicate apple green centre, looking something like an exotic glamorous daffodil. Each stem bears at least two flowerheads and often up to eight. Eucharis does not like cold, and warmth has the benefit of bringing out its delicious scent.

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