Picking your own flowers, from your cutting garden, then making floral arrangements around your home is uplifting and completely joyful beyond imagination. We've chosen six of the best for you to plant.
Picture yourself each morning, rising early, secateurs in one hand and a coffee cup in the other, stepping into your cutting garden – a fragrant patch bursting with blooms grown for picking. With a little planning, you can grow an abundance of flowers in your own backyard and fill your home with fresh, seasonal arrangements. And nothing quite calms the mind and lifts the spirit like starting the day among flowers.
When to plant
In temperate areas, autumn is the best season for planting. Where winters are cold and icy, wait until spring. Once your soil is prepared and the timing is right, you’re ready to plan your garden.
"Is there anything as delightful as a bunch of sweet peas – and they're as easy to grow as to arrange"
The secret is in the soil
Healthy soil is the foundation of a productive cutting garden. Compost, aged manure, blood and bone, dolomite, and potash should be added to bring your soil to life. This encourages micro-organisms – quiet, tireless workers that build fertility and support strong, flower-laden plants.
NOW LET’S PLAN YOUR CUTTING GARDEN
Plant a trellis of sweet peas, a bed of Iceland poppies, a smattering of Queen Anne’s lace, a drift of cosmos, with Nigella love-in-a-mist and Californian poppies, sprinkled through your garden beds.
1. Sweet peas (Lathyrus)
Nostalgic and fragrant, sweet peas are the perfect cut flower. All you need is a sunny spot and a trellis for them to climb!
STEP 1:
Dig in compost or aged manure for added soil nutrients. Sprinkle lime or dolomite to ‘sweeten’ your soil.
STEP 2:
Make sure the garden is moist before sowing your seeds directly into the garden at depth of 10cm and spaced 15–20cm.St Patrick’s Day 17 March, is the reminder to sow sweet peas but you can sow every month until August. Don’t water until seeds germinate as they are susceptible to rotting.
STEP 3:
When seed is sown at monthly intervals, flowering will last through to Christmas, weather permitting. Deadhead regularly and feed with a potassium rich fertiliserfor more flowers.
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2. Californian Poppy
(Eschscholtzia)
With silky pleated petals, this gorgeous and tough hardy poppy is from the California desert. It’s easy to grow from seed, with superbly coloured varieties available. Look for ‘Apple blossom Chiffon’, each petal brushed with shades of pink and cream as they unfurl just like apple blossom.
The poppies love full sunshine and well-drained soil and cope with a wide range of soil types. They thrive in hot, dry gardens that are water wise and drought resistant.
The flowers just keep coming through spring, summer andautumn, with a continual display and without much effort from you. Quick and easy to raise from seed, these poppies will be in bloom in ashort time after sowing.
3. Iceland poppy
(Papaver)
These poppies need full sun to flower well. They can be grown from seedlings, available at your local garden centre all through autumn.
The traditional day to plant seedlings is Anzac Day 25 April. This poppy can also be grown from seed sown in late autumn. In both cases it is wise to prepare your garden bed with rich organic matter, compost or aged manure and check the drainage. Well-drained soil is very important.
Sow seeds on the soil surface and sprinkle sand to cover. Space your plants at 30cm intervals. Poppies may reseed every year if ripe seed is allowed to drop.
"Pick poppies in the morning when blooms are their freshest"
4. Queen Anne's Lace
(Ammi)
This Egyptian wildflower makes a fine addition to the garden and to a vase. It grows to 60cm and is self-supporting with delicate, frothy white flowers resembling Queen Anne's Lace. Ammi is excellent for cutting, filling vases and attracting pollinators.
It grows easily from seed sown from mid-autumn until early spring in a sunny garden with soil well prepared and well drained. Sow a few seeds, 20cm apart.
After germination thin to one seedling. Don’t rush to remove your plants after flowering as matured seed will self-sow for next year’s display. Just what you want.
5. Cosmos
(Cosmos)
Cosmos is an ‘easy-to-grow’ cut flower, loved for its daisy-like blooms and long stems. It looks wonderful in a garden, cut-flower patch or pot. Its ‘cut-and-come-again’ ability produces abundant flowers through summer and autumn, even into winter in mild areas. Cosmos is available in single and double forms,in pinks, whites, reds and violet. And Cosmos is pollinator friendly, attracting bees and butterflies, benefitting your garden's eco system. And it loves pots!
Once your plants come into tight bud, cut long stems and allow your buds to open in your vase. This will encourage regrowth and more flowers for more arrangements.
In mild frost-free climates you can sow cosmos seed all year round. Scatter seeds over your garden bed, and lightly cover with 3mm of soil.
6. Love-in-a-mist
(Nigella)
Charming, romantic and easy to grow, this delicate cottage garden plant produces white, pink and lilac blooms set against fine-textured foliage. Great for vases, with star-shaped flowers that seem to float above the foliage and with beautiful balloon seed pods.
Easy to grow from seed, keep them moist until they germinate. The seed capsules are particularly beautiful, and very good for flower arrangements.
Sow seeds thinly in a sunny spot, 3mm deep, 25cm apart. Sow every four weeks for continuity. Leave spent stems in the garden and allow seed heads to dry. Seeds will disperse and regrow the next year.
Where to buy
Watch your garden blossom and bloom with colour as you grow Mr.Fothergill’s range of flower seeds in your own flower garden. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned gardener, Mr.Fothergill’s, will get you started!
Lambley Nursery sells a wide variety of high quality flower seeds, including meadow mixes, poppies, corn flowers andmany annuals and perennials, available for purchase directly from their website
Cosmos loves pots - as do all your cutting flowers. So position pots everywhere to give you great pleasure every day. Enjoy!
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