THE cUTTING gARDEN

This past Spring and Summer I have really embraced growing flowers in the garden with the aim to have home grown flowers to pick and put in vases around the house and at Mum’s and Dad’s house. We created a meadow garden and also turned our veggie garden into a cutting garden.  The season started with Flanders Poppies, Cornflowers, Cosmos, Queen Anne’s Lace, Love in the Mist (Nigella), then Sun Flowers, Zinnas and Dahlias. They have all been flowering since late January and are showing no signs of slowing down although I’m sure the frost will hit them in the next month or so.

Here are some tips for you to create a Cutting Garden.

*I have given the flowers a designated area rather than growing them amongst the other plants the way I have in the past.  This meant taking over the veggie garden. Giving them their own space mainly means I could improve the soil better, give them more focused care and I could grow more.

*Soil preparation is key – we improved the soil mainly for the Dahlias but I think the other flowers also enjoyed the rich organic soil. Head over to the Dahlia Planting in Highlights to see what we did.

*We connected irrigation to the beds to help water when we weren’t there. Ideally drip irrigation for flowers is best.

*Stake the plants that need staking early – one thing I didn’t do.

*Mulch the beds with a sugar cane mulch or something quite fine

*Planning/timing – research germination times, spacings and flowering times  so you get the seeds planted in time.

*Regular dead heading or picking the flowers will help promote further flowering.

I’m now planning my Winter / Spring picking garden. The Sweet Peas are already in… Do you plant flowers for picking? What are you planting now?