Growing Flowers for Cutting – Three Quick Growers

Over the past two weeks I’ve been exploring growing flowers for cutting.

My aim is to have lovely cut flowers in my home every day of the year, but without the environmental cost. That means avoiding supermarket flowers which involve oceans of air miles, plastic wrap and chemicals.

But if I’m to achieve this I need to grow 52 vases worth of flowers for cutting all year round! As I look out over my February garden full of snowdrops, crocuses and hellebores, but not much else, I realise that’s easier said than done! If I’m to have blooms, wonderful leaves and stems for a floral display from January to December, I need to plan my planting now!

To help, I’m devoting four blogs to exploring the plants which look good at different times of the year. So far I’ve covered flowers for January to March which is undoubtedly a very tricky period indeed.

And last week I considered what’s in flower in April, May and June. My tulips obviously featured heavily!

Growing Flowers for Cutting in the Summer

This week I have the much much easier task of covering the Summer months of July through to September. But while there are lots of wonderful plants already in my garden which flower in these months, such as roses, or my fabulous Annabelle Hydrangeas, if you don’t have them, many might take you a while to get established. Even if you grow them, they certainly won’t fill vases week after week during the Summer without decimating the garden!

So instead I’m focusing on three plants which, even if you don’t have them in your garden now, will grow in time to give you lots of stunning Summer vases. They’re plants I don’t currently grow. They’ll help fill the Summer share of my 52 vases. All will grow well in even a limited space on a patio or veranda. So if your patch is small you can still have a go. Lastly, I think these three look great in a vase on their own or actually in combination with each other.

So with just these three plants you can have lots of display options!

Growing Flowers for Cutting – Three Quick Growers

1.Sunflowers – Helianthus Annus

I’ve always admired the wow factor of four simple sunflower heads in a vase. It requires absolutely no flower arranging skills to make them look good. Just plonk them in water and voila.

They’re easy and quick growing. Sow them in April and May and you will have flowers for cutting in August and September.

You can grow sunflowers in a container, have them as a backdrop to a planting scheme like this lovely bed at Aston Pottery above. Or you can dot them among your other plants in your border. Wherever you grow them, just make sure it’s a sunny spot.

Dwarf Varieties

Not all sunflowers are tall. So for me, if I’m growing my sunflowers specifically for cutting, I feel I may as well go for a dwarf variety, like ‘Choco Sun’. This beauty grows just 1.5m tall (5ft), so it’s ideal for growing towards the front of a border. It is the classic yellow colour with a deep brown centre.

‘Valentine’ is a similar height but has creamy yellow flowers. Another fun small variety is ‘Teddy Bear’ – which grows 50cm (20 inches) tall and has round double yellow pompom flowers.

Height and Colour

If you feel a sunflower isn’t a sunflower unless it’s towering over you, then ‘Russian Giant’ – 3m (10ft) tall, with bright golden-yellow flowers – is a monster! But remember you will need to stake your sunflowers if your garden is exposed to high winds.

Want an alternative to the classic yellow colour? You can get some almost rust red and deep orangey varieties or some that are palest lemon. For instance, ‘Earth Walker’ – 1.8m (6ft) tall has bronze, orange and yellow flowers. For a red variety try ‘Red Sun’. It grows 1.8m (6ft) tall and has deep red flowers and almost black centres, absolutely stunning. If you love the Cafe au Lait dahlia, then the sunflower ‘ProCut Plum’ 1.5m (5ft) to my eyes looks like the sunflower equivalent.

Whatever variety you go for – I may grow a mixture – the good news is they’re quick growing. If you sow the seeds indoors in April and May, put them on a sunny window ledge, perhaps with a bit of clingfilm over them to keep them toasty, they will quickly take. Plant the seedlings out in a sunny spot when the frosts have passed, and feed and water well . You will have stunning flowers to pick in August – perfect!

2. Dahlias

When I visited my biggest brother Peter and his wife Caroline in West Wales last Summer I was blown away by their three Dahlia beds. These produced a seemingly endless supply of blooms for their home. So if I’m growing flowers for cutting, Dahlias have to be on my list!

Not only do they come in an incredible array of shapes – pom poms, dinner plate and cactus – but also every colour under the sun, or so it seems.

Planted after the frosts, dahlias supply blooms from mid Summer right through to the frosts. With them, the more you pick the more you get! Insects love them when they’re growing in your garden, and when they’re cut, they last a long time in water. What’s not to like!

In fact they’re such a wonderful plant – and one that I know relatively little about – that I’ll be featuring a special blog on them in future weeks, with input from a Dahlia expert. So I won’t go into masses of detail here. However if you are growing flowers for cutting and can’t wait for some dahlia inspiration, here are some to check out.

Growing Flowers for Cutting – Some Dahlia Suggestions

• ‘Ambition’ – whopping 8 inch wide flowers in a deep purple. What’s more this variety doesn’t flop over if it rains!
• ‘Chat Noir’ – equally good in the rain but with deep red velvety flowers. This variety apparently has a great vase life.
• Want drama? ‘Black Narcissus’ is a striking semi-cactus dahlia with deep maroon, almost black, spikey blooms.
• I’ve read that dahlias with ‘karma’ in their name have been specifically bred to be long lasting cut flowers. So I’ll definitely be checking some of them out for instance ‘Karma Lagoon’ has purple blue flowers and lasts upto 12 days once picked.
• ‘Karma Irene’ (instantly got Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ C’mon Eileen running through my head now!) is similarly long lasting and is a hot vibrant, pulsating orange.
• ‘Alfred Grille’ – similar in size to ‘Ambition’ but its flowers are golden in the middle and salmon pink on the edges.

I could go on but you get the gist. With thousands of varieties to go for, all quick growing and easy to arrange in a vase, they’re a must. And they work well in a display with sunflowers too!

That’s why anyone growing flowers for cutting, who wants to start now, should have dahlias on their list. You can give them a head start by planting them indoors or in a greenhouse. Otherwise plant the tubers outside, once the frosts have passed.

3. Cosmos

There are lots of flowers you can grow easily from seed such as Zinnias, Tithonias and Cosmos which make fantastic cut flowers for the home.

Here I’m going to concentrate on Cosmos because it is really quick growing and long-flowering, often until the the first frosts. As with Dahlias, you just need to keep deadheading. Cosmos flowers look wonderful filling out a border, mixed with other plants, or in a container on their own. So whatever your situation, there will be a Cosmos for you.

I also think Cosmos combine brilliantly with Dahlias. And with their feathery foliage they can make even a floral display by me look expertly done! A definite bonus as I’m rubbish at arranging flowers.

How to Grow Cosmos

I’m going to grow my Cosmost from seed. I could sow the seeds in early spring directly into the soil where I want the plants to grow. But I personally don’t have a lot of success doing that. So instead, I’ll plant the seeds in small pots or trays of free-draining seed compost and put these on my sunny window ledges. (If I had a greenhouse I’d grow them there). I’ll pot on the seedlings when they are big enough to handle and after that plant them out in late April/May after the dreaded old frosts have passed. I will either put the plants in my sunny border, or in a couple of big containers which I’ll harvest my bouquets from.

Growing Flowers for Cutting – Some Cosmos Suggestions

In terms of the varieties for my borders I’m going to go for the tall variety Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Fizzy Pink’ which grows about 1.2m tall has flowers in strong colours. A similarly sized white Cosmos (which I’ve heard is a great cut flower) is ‘Purity’.

For my containers I’ll grow ‘Sonata White’ which only grows 60cm tall. Or if you’re a lover of pink, the sweetly named ‘Pink Popsocks’ is also a very pretty smaller variety making it ideal for growing in pots.

So that’s it – three fast growers which if you’re growing flowers for cutting in July, August and September – and you’re starting from scratch – ought to be on your list. Happy gardening – x