Go greener with FLOWERS
MAXIMISE PICKINGS
Grow hardworking cut-and-come-again annuals and dahlias rather than short-lived performers. Plants such as cornflowers, cosmos, larkspur and sweet peas will keep on producing flowers for three to four months if they’re picked and deadheaded frequently, preventing them from going to seed. When harvesting or deadheading, cut back to above a leaf joint so that new flower stems form. From midsummer, these plants will also benefit from a weekly feed of liquid seaweed, comfrey or tomato fertiliser, which will encourage more flowers to be produced.
BOOST BIODIVERSITY
Growing your own cut flowers creates a haven for wildlife by providing food for insects and birds. Blooms with open centres, such as nigella, sunflowers and Scabiosa atropurpurea, allow insects easy access to pollen and nectar, and trumpet-shaped flowers, such as snapdragons, are a perfect fit for bumblebees. Achillea and hylotelephium have clusters of smaller blooms – perfect landing pads for hoverflies while they feed – and goldfinches will dine on the seed heads of Verbena bonariensis if the stems are left over winter.
PLANT FOR ALL SEASONS
Buying flowers from abroad is a no-no, with all those carbon-filled air miles and pesticides to keep them fresh, so grow your own blooms that celebrate seasonality instead. While summer will be the peak of the flower harvest, you can extend this by planting bulbs and perennials for spring pickings. Primroses make fantastic, long-lasting cut flowers for dainty glass bottles, and fragrant daffodils, such as Narcissus ‘Geranium’, will fill a room with perfume. Lateflowering dahlias and asters, along with seed heads such as nigella, work for autumnal vase arrangements. Everlasting flowers, such as strawflowers and statice, can be dried for winter.
SAVE YOUR OWN SEED
Collecting seed is not only thrifty, it saves on the packaging and transport involved if you buy them. Plants that germinate from homegrown seeds are also more likely to be able to cope with the growing conditions in your particular garden, and therefore be healthier and produce more flowers. Harvest seeds on a dry day, store them in paper bags or envelopes – make sure you write on the name of the plant – then keep them somewhere cool, dark and dry until needed.
UPCYCLE, DON’T BUY
Rather than buying new vases to display your flowers, scour flea markets and vintage shops. You don’t need to stick to tradition either – as long as a vessel is watertight, you can arrange in it. For wide containers, use flower frogs or chicken wire to hold stems in place, and never use non-recyclable, non-biodegradable floral foam. Repurpose glass jars and tin cans that would otherwise end up in the recycling bin – small jars are particularly useful for displaying dainty flowers with short stems, such as primroses, violets and sprigs of asters.
GROW SUSTAINABLY
Reduce the environmental footprint of your cut-flower growing by seeking out a local wood coppicer for supplies of hazel bean poles and twiggy pea sticks, rather than using imported bamboo canes to create plant supports (coppice-products.co.uk). Biodegradable jute netting, used horizontally across a flower bed so that plants grow up through it, is a sustainable alternative to plastic bean netting. And twine made from wool not only supports British farming, it can be put on the compost heap at the end of the season, too (twool.co.uk).