I’m Jay from Scented Narcissi, The Blue Box Flower Company. We help small family farmers here on the Isles of Scilly sell their flowers which are predominantly narcissi. My family farm is one of the farms that we help.

Tell us about yourself

I have grown up on the Scilly Isles on St Mary’s and my father is a flower farmer. He took over the Farm from his dad in the 1970’s so I have grown up in it. I have done all the elements of growing flowers – picking, bunching and packing. It remains a family farm as my brother now runs it with the help of his son and my 2 sons are also involved.

I am now in charge of the gift box part of Scented Narcissi.

How big is the business?

We sell between 15 and 16 million stems a year. There are 2 sides to the business. Blue Box is our gift box brand featuring our highest quality stems for consumers and florists and accounts for a tiny percentage of the business. The remainder is sent wholesale to Covent Garden Market, large flower distribution outlets and suppliers to supermarkets and other flower outlets.

In the 1950s there were around 90 farms on the islands, selling flowers – now there are just 12 small family farms. This reduction is all due to the increase in imported flowers.

The business was set up by my father and another island narcissi grower in the 1980’s.

Farmers on the Isles in the 80’s and 90’s undertook experimental work to see which varieties are the hardiest, long lasting and travel well and today they concentrate on these specific varieties so that there is a succession of varieties from Paperwhites at the end of October to Winston Churchill through to Golden Dawn in April.

What are your most popular products, and do they differ from consumers and florists?

Our most popular flowers are the Paperwhite narcissi. There is always such strong demand for them especially at Christmas. Demand for pure white scented flowers is always strong. People like to choose flowers that complement their home décor and white flowers seem to fit the bill. They must be pure white though – people are obsessed about this!

Florists like the whites and cream varieties whilst the trade like the whites for Christmas and Mother’s Day and yellow varieties at Easter.

What are the biggest challenges facing the sector and your business?

Transport and the weather. We are located 45km off the coast of Cornwall and due to the weather (gales and fog) we can often have no transport from the Island for 2-3 weeks. All our trade flowers go by freight ship so are weather dependent.

And finally, we all love a bit of star spotting – have you had any celebrity encounters through your work?

Our flowers are very popular with the Royal Family!

You can see more about Scented Narcissi on Instagram and their website

You can see all about Narcissi in our December post – here.