Set aside an area to grow cut flowers for your home throughout the year
Nothing beats the sight and scent of homegrown cut f lowers in spring
HOW’S your garden for cut flowers? If you can gather fresh decorative material on any day of the year, chalk that up as a monster success. If not, this is the time to put that right. Producing flowers for the house is one of the delights of gardening. But ensuring year-round supplies takes some doing. It doesn’t have to be buckets of chrysanthemums or dozens of roses. Three December snowdrops or a single iris bloom can be just as delightful.
And you don’t need elaborate plans for year-round supplies. Just keep floral value in mind whenever you buy plants.
Among bulbs, for example, choose tulips or narcissus which are good for cutting. And remember that interesting greenery is important, too, for backing.
Whenever you gather flowers, treat them with care. Pick in the early morning, and in summer have a bucket of water with you in which to plunge the cut stems. Never allow cut flowers to lie out of water. Strip leaves from lower stems, always clean vases thoroughly and change flower water frequently.
PICK OF THE BUNCH
IF THERE’S space, it’s good to set aside an area for growing cut f l owers. The magnificently restored Easton Walled Gardens in Lincolnshire ( eastonwalledgardens.co.uk) have a huge cutting garden called the Pickery. There, dahlias, sweet peas, rudbeckias and other cuttable glories grow in profusion. Few of us can plant on that scale, but similar plants will make a mixed border glorious as well as supplying cut flowers.
You could also make a tiny picking garden as part of a veg plot or allotment. The flowers will l ook pretty and attract pollinating insects which, in turn, help to fertilise peas, beans and fruits.
In small gardens, integrate cutting flowers with the rest of the plants. And, when you gather, always pick the most discreetly placed blooms.
FLOWER CYCLE
IN TINY gardens it’s more challenging — but achievable — to ensure year-round supplies.
Go big on spring bulbs, from January snowdrops to Mayblooming narcissus. Tulips are perfect for cutting, so choose early, mid- season and late varieties. These include Marchblooming, white Purissima, mid-season hybrids such as red Apeldoorn and late-flowering purple-black Queen of Night.
Fragrant Sweet Williams make gorgeous bouquets and are pretty among roses. Select tall, auriculaeyed varieties and sow seeds next month for flowers in 2016.
Sweet peas are heavenly, too, but choose well-scented strains such as Sweet Dreams or Fragrantissima. I also love the antique maroon and mauve variety Cupani. Grow sweet peas as cordons or over supports.
FORWARD PLANNING
FOR summer, grow brassy rudbeckias, branched sunflowers, heleniums, dahlias and gladioli. All look good indoors or out, and link summer to autumn when cooler-coloured perennial asters and chrysanthemums join the long-running display.
Pickings get slimmer at the year’s back end. Leafless Nerines produce pink blooms and flourish in sandy soils. You can buy those in bloom in October. Kaffir lily Schizostylis coccinea produces spires of pink or red flowers right up to the shortest day.
In the darkest months, rely on winter jasmine , winter viburnums and, for knockout January fragrance, wintersweet Chimonanthuspraecox. By then, snowdrops are budding and the cycle begins again.
But today we’re in a flurry of spring planting and garden centres are full of tempting stock. Choose wisely and you could end up with something to fill a vase every day.
DEAL WITH DAFFS
DAFFODILS and narcissus are nearly over, but need to die down naturally.
Never remove foliage or mow daffodils i n rough grass until the l eaves have withered. The best time to transplant spring bulbs is early autumn, but you need to know where they are, so mark target clumps with a cane to make digging for them in September easier.
You can also divide clumps now but must handle the plants with care. Dig deeply to avoid slicing bulbs and, when they are out, prise them apart. Replant each bulb at once and water them in.
Don’t sever any leaves and set the bulbs deeply enough to bury all the white, lower stems.
ASPARAGUS TIME
THE asparagus harvest is in full swing at the moment. Gather the plump spears as they appear and continue to harvest them right through until the last week in June.
Cut e ach one j ust below ground level, but take care not to slice your harvesting knife i nto t he crowns. While you gather your fresh spears, pull out any weeds while they are young and easily destroyed. If there are lots of weed seedlings germinating, disturb the soil surface so as to dislodge them. Don’t dig down too deeply, as that could damage the crop.
The fresher your asparagus, the better it will taste, although you can store spears temporarily by standing them in a basin with their lower stems in water. Make sure you r eplace t he water daily.