Editor’s letter
Cut flower arranging is enjoying a resurgence with contemporary bunches that look like a garden in a vase; naturally beautiful, loosely organised and with British-grown cut flowers. In this issue, Amy Sanderson describes the cut flower arrangements she made for the gardener and plantswoman Beth Chatto while working as an intern at the Beth Chatto Gardens and Nursery, and how this introduced her to the possibility of a more unexpected kind of cut flower. Beth Chatto was notable for pushing the boundaries of horticultural acceptability with her displays at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show as well as in her own garden, and for her championing of species plants. She, and latterly Amy, used plant material from her garden to create weekly cut flower displays, sourcing flowers and foliage at their peak to bring indoors. While Amy initially grew modern florist’s favourites, including Dahlia ‘Café au Lait’, sweet peas, roses and zinnias, under Beth’s tutelage her palette grew to include branches of
Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Cotinus from the car park alongside the garden and single, simple, Dahlia merckii. This more gentle, more sustainable approach to flowers for cutting doesn’t require the rich soil, frequent irrigation, feeding and staking of a traditional cut flower patch, and extends the maxim ‘right plant, right place’ to cut flowers. Amy shares 48 of the best new flowers and foliage for cutting in this issue. There is plenty to inspire.
Maximum formality of design is paired with minimum formality of planting in saturated colours in the garden at Frogmore. A jostle of cardinal reds, vibrant blues and boiled-sweet purples, long-flowering plants, including penstemons, gladioli and crocosmias, provide a constancy of colour. The owners – a nurseryman and a florist – interweave the perennials in their garden with annuals for an even greater depth of colour. They have been influenced by Norah Lindsay, a misty figure in British garden history who created gardens with a spontaneous spirit and a bold, lavish approach in the early 20th century.
I hope you enjoy the issue,