Top Ten Cut Flowers To Grow From Seed For The Cutting Garden.

Top Ten Cut Flowers To Grow From Seed For The Cutting Garden.

With warmer days just around the corner, Ali Barwani looks at flowers you can grow from seed in the cutting garden. Release your inner Sarah Raven or Athur Parkinson, get sowing now!

Do you adore the sybaritic pleasure of cut flowers in the home? Then, why not grow your own? Raising flowers from seed is easy. You do not need a greenhouse or any expensive equipment. All that is required is a sunny windowsill, which makes an excellent germination station, and a little outdoor space to plant out your seedlings. This planting area can be a dedicated cutting garden, a picking border, or a few large pots on a balcony or patio.

Growing flowers from seed is an economical way to create a cutting garden. What could be nicer than filling the dull gloom of a patch of bare soil with plants raised from seed and having abundant cut flowers for the house all summer and autumn? Flowers are not just beautiful in our homes; they provide nectar and pollen for butterflies and bees.

What Are Cut Flowers?

Any flower you can pick and keep in a vase of water is a cut flower. However, if after a short while it becomes flaccid and can’t be revived it clearly won’t make a good cut flower!

The flowers chosen here are easy to grow and produce abundant blooms over an extended period of time. They will also generate a fresh crop of flowers after those in bloom have been cut.

The flower seeds listed below are all annuals. That means they will grow from a seed, produce flowers, set seed, and die all in the same year. In other words, annual plants live fast and die young!

Growing annuals from seed provides the opportunity to observe the circle of life. This is therapeutic and helpful to our sense of wellbeing. Planting seeds and nurturing plants is a great way to encourage children to observe nature. Have you ever closely studied the exquisite detail of a Knautia flower with its beautiful circles of tiny florets making up each pincushion-like head?

What Is A Cutting Garden?

A cutting garden is a plot used to grow cut flowers for the house. It is typically laid out as a square or rectangle, with plants arranged in neat rows. It should be a sunny site that is sheltered from strong winds and frost. A cutting garden should have a fine, fertile weed-free soil.

To learn more about creating a cutting garden:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/for-places/cut-flowers-growing

However, you do not need a dedicated cutting garden to enjoy a bountiful supply of cut flowers. It is easy to incorporate annuals into your beds and borders, and in tubs and containers.

My Golden Rule for horticultural happiness is says ‘the person who grows the flowers should be the one that gets to pick them!’.

Why Bother With Seeds?

Firstly, growing from seed is exciting! You will never forget the first thrill upon observing that the seeds you planted a fortnight ago have miraculously transmuted into verdant life!

Secondly, our seed racks offer a diverse range of flower seeds to peruse. You will find many more varieties of annual plants available as seeds now than as potted plants in summer. You can grow your own colour schemes!

Thirdly, often new flower varieties are initially only available as seeds, giving you exclusivity. For example, this year Mr Fothergill’s have introduced the Nasturtium ‘Baby Orange’ which produce many bold flowers ideal for small posies.

Finally, growing flowering plants from seed is an economical way of filling your garden with colour. A few pounds spend on a packet of seeds can potentially give you tens, or even hundreds of plants depending on the number of seeds in the packet. Start sowing seeds, and you will find that you have a plethora of spare plants to gift to friends and family.

The Low-Down On Annuals.

Annuals come as two types: Hardy Annuals and Half-Hardy Annuals.

Hardy Annuals (HA) are tough plants that can be sown outdoors in the garden right now. Calendula, Nigella, sweet peas, and sunflowers are examples of Hardy Annuals.

To learn more about growing Hardy Annuals click on the link:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=718

Half-Hardy Annuals (HHA) can only be directly sown (that is, sown into the ground) outdoors after the last frost. Half-hardy annuals need more warmth. Therefore, it is better to start these seeds indoors on a sunny windowsill.

This weekend is a good time to start indoor sowings of half-hardy cutting flowers such as Antirrhinum, Cleome, Cosmos, Nasturtium, Nicotiana, and Zinnia. Direct sowing into the ground of some Half Hardy annuals such as Cosmos, Larkspur, and Cornflower can be made from May.

Discover more about growing Half Hardy Annuals:

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/10-half-hardy-annuals-to-grow/

My Top Ten Annuals For The Cutting Garden.

1) Sweet Peas (HA). They have it all, colour, delicacy, and intoxicating perfume. If you want to begin growing flowers from seed but have never tried it before then start with sweet peas! You can sow the seeds in pots indoors now. The large seeds will germinate quickly, and you will see bright green shoots emerging within a week or two of sowing.

Germination Hack:

Place sweet pea seeds on moist kitchen roll in a clear zip-lock plastic bag in a warm spot for 24 hours until they have swollen before planting them in seed compost. This treatment helps them germinate more quickly than planting them directly into a pot.

A Guide to Growing Sweet Peas:

Sweet peas flourish if their roots can grow deeply, so sow them in deep pots. Sweet peas are fast growing climbers and need to scramble up sticks against a wall or fence, or up a wigwam of sticks. Pick sweet pea flowers regularly to encourage the continued production of blooms.

For more information:

https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-sweet-peas

2) Sunflowers or Helianthus (HA). Sow indoors in April, or directly sow outdoors in late April to June.

Large sunflower blooms add drama to floral arrangements. But remember, smaller flowered multi-headed varieties make better cut flowers. Sunflowers should be picked when fully open, as their closed buds do not open in water.

3) Pot Marigold or Calendula (HA). Long flowering, bright orange, yellow or burnt orange flowers. Marigolds last well in water, but you need to change the water every day or it will quickly start to putrefy.

4) Cosmos or Cosmea (HHA). Sow indoors from March to May. Ideal in containers. Lasts well in water as a cut flower. A wide range of colours from white, through pastel pinks to rose and red, and even yellow

5) Larkspur Consolida (HA). Can be sown indoors from March to May. Tall annuals with feathery foliage and delicate flowers that can be blue, purple, pink, or white.  They add a romantic ‘Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ motif to summer arrangements. Larkspur flowers can be dried and used in winter displays.

6) Love-in-a-Mist Nigella (HA). Sow indoors or direct sow outdoors from March to May. Masses of pale blue, white or pink papery flowers that appear to float in a cloud of fine green bracts. Nigella should only be cut when the flowers are fully open. Their inflated, papery seed pods can also be dried and used to add architectural interest to winter arrangements.

7) Mallow Lavatera (HA). Direct sow outdoors from March to May. A fast growing annual that matures to form bushes with pink or white, open blossoms. Branches of mallow are great for larger displays.

8) Tobacco plant Nicotiana (HHA). Sow indoors from February to April, or outdoors from April to May. Available in a wide variety of pastel colours, and white and green. The nodding, trumpet-like flowers add a certain delicacy to a bouquet. Enjoy their seductive perfume in the evening.

9) Zinnia (HHA) Sow indoors in April, and direct sow outdoors from late April to May. Their eye-catching large daisy flowers come in bright jewel-like colours and are carried on long stems.

Top Tip: zinnias have brittle stems, so handle them gently.

10) Strawflower Xerochrysum bracteatum (formerly known by the equally sesquipedalian name, Helichrysum bracteatum) (HA). Direct sow outdoors from now till May. These simple, daisy-like flowers come in bold colours. As well as providing cut flowers for vases, their straw-like, lambent petals and wiry stems easily dry out and can be used to add colour to your home during winter.

Two Seed Sowing Hacks:

1) Don’t use seed trays unless you want to raise hundreds of plants. A pinch of seeds in a 9cm plant pot will provide plenty of plants. Use square pots and you can fit several different annuals into your windowsill propagator!

Important Tip: always label your pots with the plant name and sowing date!

2) Plants that don’t like having root disturbance (such as sweet peas) can be sown in cell inserts, seed tray liners divided into small sections. Two or three seeds can be placed into each module and thinned to one after germination. These plants can be potted-on without causing harm to the roots.

In Conclusion.

Growing annual flowers from seed is easy. Seeds are packaged and programmed by Nature to germinate, grow, and flower. All you need to do is to plant them at the right time and provide the right conditions.

Half the fun of growing seeds is in experimenting. Sometimes there will be setbacks such as bad weather and slugs and snails – but experience gained from these challenges will make you a more confident gardener.

Your local Capital Gardens centre stocks seed sowing essentials – all the things you will need to raise a garden full of beautiful flowers from seed. We have seed compost, perlite, vermiculite, plant labels, plastic pots, terracotta pots, fibre pots, seed trays, non-electric propagators, plants saucers, and small watering cans.

In store you will find a panoply of flower seeds. On the back of every seed packet, you will find clear instructions about when and how to sow its contents.

So, are your fingers itching to get growing? Now is the time to get sowing!