I’ve been growing flowers in gardens for many years, three years ago I created a cutting garden as part of a garden design project to allow clients to raid the flowery bounty of their garden and fill the house with colour without denuding the borders of all their flora or the wildlife of their food source.
Three years on and the cutting garden is a huge success with ample bunches being cut for their home weekly from April to October with a few spare bunches for friends and family.
In the spirit of testing good cutting plants I made some space in my growing plots to trial cut flowers. Of course the cutting garden allocation grew and grew until now almost 2/3rd of my growing space (500m2) is turned over to plants that can be cut. About half annuals and half perennial (including the large dahlia patch).
Us garden designers are always a bevvy of income streams so when a lovely local cafe asked if I could supply them with some flowers for table posies, I jumped at the chance to expand.
For the moment I am supplying DIY flower buckets on a weekly basis April to October. Mixed buckets with foliage and fillers as well as beautiful blooms, about 35-40 stems in each for £25.
We pick on Thursday, straight into water and condition in water overnight, delivering on Friday morning – currently Bedford only.
Growing a wide variety of flower types and cultivars within each type we’re unlikely to be able to provide large numbers of any one thing but do ask and we’ll help if we can. Think of us as a well stocked garden. Staples are:-
- Muscari
- Sweet Peas – for scent not stem length
- Table Iris – 64 cultivars in assorted colours approx 15-20″ stems with 5-7 blooms per stem.
- Dahlia – currently 50 cultivars, next year (2018) more like 75
- Zinnia – Benary’s bright colours with some greens/whites
- Annuals/Biennials – Calendula, Mollucella, Nicotiana, Cosmos, Ammi, Dill, Euphorbia oblongata, Digitalis, Clary sage, Larkspur, Antirhinum, Sweet William, Cornflower, Escholzia
- Perennial – Grasses, Fennel, Lupins, Alchemilla, Achillea, Roses, Herbs, Phlomis, Sedum, Aster, Honeysuckle, Lilac, field Scabious…..
- To get an idea of varieties of blooms from the plot see our instagram page
in 2018 we’ll be expanding to include:-
- Anemone blanda
- Ranunculus – papery petals
- Iceland poppies – Papaver nudicaule
- Narcissus – scent is everything
- Annuals – Sunflowers with smaller heads and interesting shades, more frothy foliage – Daucus, Burplereum, Orlaya
- Perennial – Hellenium, Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Clematis and as much else as I can cram in!
The flowers are British grown, in Bedfordshire by me and some wonderful helpers, the aim is to be as organic and fresh as possible.
If you would like to order flowers from us please do email us or CALL to discuss how we can help.
editing the Dahlia
