BRING THEM INDOORS

Once blooms emerge you can cut them for indoors. This encourages more flowers.

Here’s how

• Cut flowers in the cool of the morning.

• Snip horizontally with clean, sharp bypass secateurs (see page 104), just above leaf nodes.

• Choose flowers that are nearly or fully open as buds won’t open once cut.

• Once harvested, make another horizontal cut at the bottom of the stem and put cut ends in about 10cm of hot water for about an hour. This encourages the blooms to last longer – up to 6 days.

• Strip off leaves that will be below the water line and cut ends at an angle to enable greater water uptake.

• Change vase water every 2-3 days.

Let each dahlia be a star in an individual vase. Add a panicle of Queen Anne lace for contrast!