In the pink

IN a sleepy Devon coombe, a field or two away from where the Great Western Railway chugs along the sea wall between London and Exeter, lies Whetman Pinks. The nursery, founded in 1936, originally grew cut flowers for Covent Garden Flower Market and the so-called Riviera Line was a vital part of the business. When, in the 1960s, the homebred cut-flower market collapsed under the weight of cheaper foreign imports, Whetman’s survived and prospered by growing