Choosing The Best Cutting Flower Garden Plants

 

We all love to see a colourful display of flowers, arranged beautifully in vases, bowls, jugs, urns or any other decorative pot. My guide on choosing the best cutting flower garden plants to grow will help you enjoy all year blooms for your home.

We are enthralled by rich, exotic and flamboyant wedding and celebratory flowers in venues, churches and bouquets but have you ever tried to develop and grow your own best cutting flower garden plants purely for the purpose of picking them for your own displays?

Florists flowers are often pricey as many are shipped in from abroad, a practice that adds considerably to carbon footprints and has a detrimental impact on the environment.

A lot of these lovely blooms can be grown from seeds or bulbs in your own garden or outdoor space.

How good would it be to grow your own flowers for your home in order to share them with friends and family at a fraction of the cost but with a whole lot more love involved?

With this comes the added bonus of having a garden full of colour and fragrance and therefore being able to pick the prize specimens from your borders.

The British climate is ideal for growing a wide range of cutting flowers and what’s more you could have access to varieties that florist shops don’t often stock. The reason being that your cut flowers are fresher and only travel from your garden to indoors.

So, if you want some inspiration to start growing your own bouquets…read on.

I have included the following groups of cutting flower garden plants:

• Perennial cutting flowers
• Annual cutting flowers
• Shrubs for cutting flowers and foliage

 

Choosing The Best Cutting Flower Garden Plants – Perennials

There are many lovely perennial plants that you can include in a cutting garden. There are no right or wrong flowers in my opinion, if you like them and they look and smell good then get on and grow them. Try Full Sun Perennials that Bloom all Summer

Some have a longer life as cut flowers than others, for example: Alstroemeria lasts for weeks but as you can pick whatever you have in your garden, every day, then vase life time is not such an important issue.

Choose a variety of flowers to give you diverse colour choices and fragrance.

The key, I think, is to grow what You love. Grow the flowers that you enjoy seeing in your garden and home.

Also, plant seasonally so that you have available cutting flowers throughout the year.

Going out into a winter garden to choose evergreen boughs and berries for a Yuletide or winter solstice display is one of the joys of growing cutting flowers and foliage.

 

• Alstroemeria
• Echium Blue Bedder
• Statice
• Larkspur
• Salvia
• Hellebores
• Asters
• Echinacea
• Rudbeckia
• Echinops
• Eringium
• Astrantia
• Gypsophila
• Chrysanthemums
• Bulbs and tubers such as daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, lily, dahlias and gladioli and many more.

Start ordering bulbs now ready for delivery in time for planting in Autumn and grow cutting flowers for next Spring.

Choosing The Best Cutting Flower Garden Plants – Annuals

Growing flowers from seeds is a lot easier on your wallet than buying ready grown plants. As well as having a wealth of choice, you can get ahead by starting to sow seeds early if you have a greenhouse or propagator. This also affords you a longer growing season. How to Grow Plant Seeds. 5 Easy Steps

You can experiment each year with new plants and varieties which means you will always have a great choice of cutting flowers whatever the season.

• Sweet Peas
• Cosmos
• Zinnia
• Sunflowers
• Cornflowers
• Poppies
• Cerinthe major
• Nicotiana
• Calendula
• Antirrhinum

Shrubs For Cutting Flowers And Foliage

Along with cutting flowers you can find many shrubs and trees that will provide you with lovely foliage and berries to enhance your indoor flower displays.

Many of which you may already have in your gardens or indeed in neighbouring gardens. You can always ask a friendly neighbour for a few bits to add to your arrangements in exchange for a bunch of flowers.

Best Hardy Evergreen Flowering Shrubs  A guide to some lovely garden shrubs. Or read 15 Trees and Shrubs for winter colour to enhance and prolong seasonal colour for cutting.

The following are just a few ideas to give you inspiration when it comes to choosing cut flowers and stems.

Whether in a vase on their own or with other flowers they will look wonderful.

• Philadelphus
• Lilac
• Broom
• Eucalyptus
• Hydrangea
• Forsythia
• Hamamelis
• Peony
• Roses
• Ivy
• Holly
• Cornus
• Evergreen shrubs for foliage

Where Should I Plant A Cutting Flower Garden?

You don’t need a large space, a few containers on a balcony can provide some flowers to have indoors. If you do have plenty of room in your garden you can choose to plan a dedicated cutting flower garden or plant them in amongst your beds and borders.

 

Basically cut flowers require no more than your usual garden flowers. The same rules apply…fertile, weed-free soil and water as necessary. A sunny, sheltered location that doesn’t suffer from too much wind, nor is in a frost pocket is the ideal spot.

Dig in organic matter, compost, well-rotted manure once a year, particularly if you have sandy or clay soils as this improves the soil and help to retain moisture.

Apply general fertiliser, preferably homemade, See Best Organic Fertiliser To Help Your Garden Grow, to help promote strong, floriferous growth.

Use stakes and supports for taller varieties just as you would normally to be help taller plants grow straight, sturdy stems.

 

 

Where To Buy Plants For Cut Flowers

Here on my website you will find many online plant suppliers for you to choose from.

Take your pick from quality growers. Sarah Raven has gorgeous cutting flower seed collections that will put you on the right path to your very own flower garden.

 

 

 

 

How To Best Display Your Cut Flowers

 

I can’t profess to be very talented at flower arranging, I tend to pick a pot and pop them in but the general rule of thumb is to choose a container that is in proportion to your flowers in terms of height, keep it in balance.

Use a clean vase and refresh the water regularly.

Select a number of small bud vases set on a tray as an alternative idea from a single container.

Or select a jug that matches the tea service displayed on your dresser.

Find a huge old brass urn to show of brassy, bold, blooms of peony and roses.

There are many fabulous ways of showing off your flowers…be creative.

I include here a link to a flower arranging tutorial.

 

 

I do hope that you have enjoyed this article and found it useful, please share with friends and family and on social media.

If you have any questions or wish to share your views please pop them in the comments box below, I love to hear from you and I always reply.

Thank you and Happy Gardening.