The Cutting Garden : An end of summer catch up

Time has whizzed away over the last months of summer and we’re long over due a cutting garden catch up. I aim to write a monthly Cut Flower Update, well monthly. Through a combination of teaching, hosting and celebrating birthdays, my feet haven’t touched the ground.

Today the doors to the garden are still open and I’m really looking forward to catching up.

Let’s start with the weather, I’m British after all! Heatwave after heatwave has caused many of my carefully planted July crops to sizzle away.

I could look at empty cutting beds with a sense of despair (I do sometimes) but I’ve chosen to look at them with a more gentle eye and ask. ‘What can I learn here?’

Whilst many flowers have suffered there are some that have thrived.

Snapdragons (Antirrhinum) are having the best time. They will not stop flowering. I planted a mix of plug plants from Picked at Dawn and sowed my own seed. They are slug repellent in wet years and blooming in dry years.  The perfect cut and come again flower. Sow them in Autumn or early Spring for a garden full of flowers. I used to say sow a packet of mixed colours however, I would say its worth buying individual colour seed packets to get the colour flowers you really want.

Strawflowers (Helichrysum) were late to get started but have more than made up for their slow start. I have grown plants from my own seed this year and am being rewarded my so many flowers per plant. These little jewel like beauties can be started in the Autumn.

For for my last ‘Quickie’ workshop I gave a seed sowing demo. Those tiny seeds have germinated and are growing beautifully. They are great to use as cut flowers but really I grow them for Autumn and Winter arrangements when I can appreciate how versatile they are.

Lavatera has been wonderful. Again I used last years seed which ended up being very pink. It hasn’t been too much of a problem however I will rebuy more of the white seeds for spring time sowing. They won’t stop flowering and bring a bit of hope to some desolate beds! They produce hundreds of seeds but my favourite part is how those seeds heads dry. They dry like tiny crowns and are perfect winter floral work.

My favourite garden shrubs, Guelder Rose and Opulus Roseum Snowball Bush droop then spectacularly perk up at any rainfall. They are doing their thing and I’m letting them get on with it.

It’s my roses that are holding strong, growing wild and saving the day for late summer weddings and workshops. I look to work with every season of a plants life and roses give me everything I need.

I’m in the Southeast with heavy clay soil and what looks like a lot of underground water. My roses are growing and blooming as if there’s no weird weather happening. New leaves have been growing like crazy, I have been cutting them to weave into arrangements all month.

I usually find roses to be the answer to most gardening problems and this year is no different. As well as a hosepipe ban there has been a mystery leak taking out a lot of my growing space. Roses have dealt with it all.

It’s made me rethink how I use my cutting beds. With summer weather becoming less predictable, I’m looking to introduce more plants that can grow in different conditions.

When I first set  up the cutting garden, I based it on a teeny version of flower farmers I learnt from. Now with my own experience and customers.  The garden is telling me to turn it into a cutting garden rather than farm. There will be a focus on less turn over of beds. Instead bringing in plants that can establish themselves to withstand different conditions.

Of all the ‘show stopper flowers’ roses out perform all others in my garden. I need no excuse to bring more in but this new way of looking at the garden has got me opening many tabs!

Autumn is the perfect time to plant bare root roses, I plan to bring in as many as possible! Champagne Moment is a cracker and The Generous Gardener is beginning to scramble over the greenhouse, despite being left in its pot, in a bin filled with old compost. I’ll be adding both!

As we come back to the present I’ve been tending to more immediate jobs. First up has been giving my old greenhouse a sweep and a clean.

I love a clean floor moment inside and love a clean greenhouse outside even more. My greenhouse is very rickety and held together in places with tape but the absolute joy that bubbles up when I step inside is enormous! Those with a perfect greenhouse, how do you cope with paved floors and complete windows?!

The clean out was in preparation for Autumn seed sowing. I can’t suggest this enough, getting seeds to germinate in the warmth of the Autumn sun makes life so much easier come Spring. Stronger, eager to grow plants is always the name of the game.

Knowing what to sow first can be overwhelming. I’ve started with any seed collected over the summer; Silene, Sweet Peas, Nigella, Cornflower, Ammi Green Mist and Snap dragons have all gone in. For the second sowing I’ll go through my notes and see what’s missing; on that list so far, Poppies, Scabiosa and Agrostemma. There will be more!

My The Cutting Garden : A true beginners guide to selecting and growing cut flowers should help you on your way if this is all new.

Finally, I’ve been emptying and gathering any pots. October and November bring bulb planting. With October not far away I’ll save the details for my next post.

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