THE HOME CUTTING GARDEN
I step out onto our front porch steps and wander down into the cutting garden. My fingertips touch the soft petals of a nearby Rose and I lean in to smell her perfume. If I close my eyes, for a moment the demands of Motherhood quiet and I feel calm and pleasure wash over me. Someone calls “Mum, Mum,” repeatedly and I am quickly brought back to reality. I snip a few stems of Dahlia, Zinnia and Cosmos, strip their stems of foliage throwing the leaves to the lime path to sweep up later. I know If I take the time to sweep up green waste my moment will be lost, the flowers will be cast aside and left to wither and die in the late Summer sun while I tend little hearts.
The first time I heard of a Cutting Garden was while visiting a friend some years ago. She led me on stone paths through the flower beds of her English style cottage garden. As we drifted past an opening in the hedge she graciously gestured and said, “Through there is The Cutting Garden.” I had to resist the urge to take to it with the scissors.
A cutting garden was an alluring invitation. I understood that if you grew flowers you fell into one of three gardening styles - the hobby home gardener with beds full of mis-matched flowers and plants lovingly collected over time, Farmer Florists who grew only to pick and Gardeners whose gardens were en route in garden tours - complete with manicured flower beds pretty enough to be in a Jane Austen novel, whose flowers graced centre stage with no desire to be cut or held. The idea of a home garden grown especially for picking, with no need to strip the house flower beds of their dignity, captivated me.
I have always, always adored flowers. I can never have enough flowers in my life - I love placing armfuls of cut blooms on the table and arranging vases in every room of the house. When flowers are near I feel a sense of calm and order despite what messes may surround me. The more opulent arrangements call to me from a wealthy past era and for a moment in time I am there - where heavily scented Roses, Campanula and Carnations lovingly tended to by The Gardener, would spill out from urns and vessels to greet you in every room: where elaborate bowls of arranged blooms wait on you at the breakfast table, flowers adorn your dresser and tiny white petals sit among the dewdrop diamond combs in your hair beckoning someone to dare draw near and breathe in their perfume. Flowers have the power to seduce, evoke memory and draw imagination. The garden itself holds a compelling presence - it has the ability to create opportunities for endless connections to people, time and place. It can lift your mood when you are feeling low and soothe an anxious mind. If you have flowers in your garden you will most definitely have joy in your heart and your home.
Starting out to grow your own flowers can feel very overwhelming as there is such a variety of gorgeous seeds, bulbs and plants available. When I first started I had packets and packets of seeds and the process of sowing each one at the right time and temperature made me anxious and overwhelmed. I have since learnt from trial and error, picking up new skills every season. By taking risks and just mucking in I have aquired a more beautiful and prolific garden without too much stress. If something fails to germinate or grow then I just try again the following season.
The very first time I decided to grow flowers was while on an overseas adventure in Canada. I had been picking flowers from the garden and arranging them in glass jars - a friend then took them to sell at markets in Toronto alongside her homemade Chilli sauce and Dill Pickles. She would return with cash and more jars for me to fill. I realised how much I loved arranging flowers and how easy and fun that money was to earn so I thought I would attempt to grow some of my own. I waited in excited anticipation but none of my seeds germinated! I hadn’t sown in seed trays I had thrown them straight into the field. The Summer was so hot and dry and little water reached the rows of seed - I accepted failure and didn’t try again. But, the pull to be around flowers was strong and a few years later I sowed some Sweet Peas against the fence of our rental house’s garden back home in New Zealand. I cant remember why I chose Sweet Peas but they flowered and smelled so delicious that they became the catalyst for my floral obsession.
I now have my own Cutting Garden outside the front porch of our first home which provides me with most of the flowers I need for floral design and it never fails to fill my vases inside.
If you want to have flowers on your table too and you’re feeling lost as to where to start, Ive put together a really basic guide to help you get started. I’m a novice gardener and I tend to dig a lazy hole and hope for the best - so if I can grow flowers then so can you!
Strawflower waiting to be picked
HOW TO CREATE A BEAUTIFUL CUTTING GARDEN IN YOUR BACKYARD
Start small. make a small raised bed or section off a little area in your garden that you are going to give all your energy to. Sectioning off a part of the garden will make sure that you aviod experiencing overwhelm, especially when the weeds grow. If you don’t have room for a garden you can grow most cut flowers in a collection of pots on your patio.
Plant Perennials and Roses. You can add more each year and you will have flowers with barely any work to do! Perennials will flower every year for years once they are planted and Roses are generally fairly low maintenance and hard to kill (edit - I may not have killed my roses this season but due to Motherhood they have been very neglected and are not at all healthy. Hopefully I’ll do better in the Spring).
Plant and sow seasonal so you can have almost year round flowers.ie. Bulbs and Sweet Peas for Spring, Zinnias, Dahlias and Cosmos for Summer and Asters and Chrysanthemum for the Autumn. (I’m in love with the double Chrysanthemum varieties, they are so stunning! You can buy plants online from Plant for Life Nursery. There are also some helpful tips on growing them here too).
Rotate your beds if you have a small space - ie. pull out bulbs once the foliage has died down and remove finished crops and replant with something new for late Summer or Autumn flowering.
Prepare your beds by digging compost and fertilizer in before planting and feed the plants with fertiliser or compost tea/liquid seaweed as they grow.
Read the seed packets. They will tell you an optimal germination temperature (it will be hard to germinate outside these recommendations), expected days till germination and days/weeks till flowering. If the variety is not frost hardy you can find that info here too.
Choose a few favourites to start with and add more each year/season. Pull out plants if you don’t like them and replace them with ones that you do!
Sow into seed trays first. (Some seeds can be direct sown but I often don’t have much success when I do this! I forget to water them or the chickens scratch them up). Use moistened seed raising mix and water your trays from the bottom up until the seeds sprout and plants establish their second set of leaves. When the seedlings are big enough to plant out (a few true leaves), harden your seedlings off outside before transplanting to avoid shock. There is a great guide on ‘How To Start Flowers From Seed’ here - by Erin Benzakein of Floret Flower (it explains how to harden off seedlings too). Erin is a Flower Farmer Queen with an abundant floral business in the US and a worldwide following- she offers a wealth of free gardening advice online and has three amazing books out on how to grow and arrange flowers - ‘Cut Flower Garden’ is one that I refer to often. It can be bought online or in most book stores around NZ.
Have fun and don’t be disheartened if you fail. Just try again! There really is not much to it and the success of gardening mostly comes down to Mother Nature. As my six year old son beautifully wrote in his school speech on nature - ”it needs water and sun and takes care to grow. God of the wind makes it work.” It really is a beautiful miracle to watch the transformation of seed to flower with very little effort from our hands.
THE CUTTING GARDEN SEASONAL FLOWER GUIDE ~ WHAT TO PLANT
IN SPRING ~
(Sow and plant in Autumn for early Spring flowering);
DAFFODILS come in so many beautiful varieties and creamy colours. I don’t have a single bright yellow daffodil bulb in my garden - although I do love them too. I have limited space and prefer all the creamy apricot tones. Once the bulbs are in the ground they grow so easily and will also multiply for the following season. A few varieties that I love are; Bridal Crown, Kiwi Melody and Pink Perfection.
RANUNCULAS - I’m in love with their rosette faces and vibrant colours. I plant the corms into a tray of seed raising mix and presprout them. Once they have foliage on top I transplant them into my beds. This prevents them rotting as with the winter rain here in NZ they often rot and die even before they produce foliage. I have recently discovered that the French and Italian Ranunculas varieties produce much more fluffy, double and beautiful blooms. I am so keen to get my hands on some of these plants (buy online from Emerden) for next season! You can also buy their seeds too from Barrhill Blooms.
Purchase bulbs from; NZ Bulbs and Bulbs Direct.
STRAWFLOWERS are workhorses in the garden from spring to late autumn. Just one plant will give you so many flowers over the season and they hold their beauty really well if you dry them too! I really love these flowers, the variety of colours and tones that they produce always amazes me. I have a large dried bunch on top of my bathroom cabinet. For our wedding they were set in resin moulds and placed on tables as paper weight favours - they forever have a place in my heart.
Strawflower seeds can be purchased at a variety of garden centres online. Kings Seeds and Egmont Seeds have a large collection of seeds and plants are available to purchase at most garden centres.
SWEET PEAS - Sow in Autumn, Winter or Spring (when to sow depends on the variety). I like to sow in July for mid Spring flowering. They need about 12 hours a day of sunlight to flower. A garden wall of sweet peas smells so wonderful - they are a delight to the senses in every way. Dr Keith Hammett is a plant breeder known for his sweet Sweet Pea seeds.
IN THE SUMMER~
COSMOS; A single Cosmos plant can give you so many cut flowers for the Summer. I love the double variety ‘Snow Puff’ and I have a new single favourite - ‘Apricot Lemonade.’ It has soft apricot to pale yellow blooms accentuated by a ring of blush pink.
DAHLIAS are addictive to collect, there are so many colours, shapes and varieties. Im so excited to see some new ones in my garden bloom this Summer that I have purchased this year from Susie Ripley. Their flowers start around December and will bloom through until the first frost in the late Autumn. They are pretty draught tolerant and fairly easy to grow. They do take up a fair bit of space but one tuber will fill a lot of vases over the Summer.
ROSES; Forever a classic - add some Romance to your garden bed. David Austen Roses are some of my favourites and so is the beautiful caramel coloured ‘Julia’s Rose’.
ZINNIAS are a must to try if your wanting to grow cut flowers. So easy to germinate and fast to flower. I’m in love with Zinnia ‘Jazzy’ and ‘Sunset’. Both have a mottled mix of colours on one flower head - burgundy, red, pink, white, yellows and brown.
IN THE AUTUMN ~
CELOSIA is so pretty fresh or dried. It adds a fluffy texture to arrangements and comes in bright or pastel colours. I prefer the Plume varieties over the cockscomb but both are so fun!
RUDBECKIA is a large daisy like flower with variegated burgundy and brown tones. Each flower is a different colour to the next - they have a beautiful painterly quality to them.
GOMPHRENA have super sweet little pom pom heads like Clover which hold beautifuly as dried flowers too.
IN THE WINTER ~
HELEBORES I find are better left in the garden as they droop if you pick them too early. If you pick just as the flower is going to seed they will have a decent vase life. The double apricot Hellebores have stolen my heart!
DAPHNE - every garden needs a heady perfume and Daphne will not disappoint. It is such a welcome experience for the senses in the middle of winter when everything else around you is grey and bleak. It can be used as a cut flower too and one little bloom in your bathroom is better than any store bought air freshener!
PAPERWHITES - One of the first bulbs to bloom in late winter/early spring, Paper Whites are a welcome sight to see during those colder days. You can coax them to bloom earlier too if you plant in pots indoors.
FAVOURITE FOLIAGE & FLOWERING SHRUBS~
(all of these plants seem quite happy to be cut back hard and continue to produce lush foliage);
EUCYLYPTUS BABY GUM is a wedding favourite. It has grey curly leaves which dry beautifully too.
NINE BARK - a beautiful Maple shaped leaf in a dark burgundy-brown. It has a pretty white flower on it in the Spring.
SPIREA - A Lacey white flowering bush. The perfect accent to all of your spring bulbs.
LAMBS EAR - Just as it sounds - leaves of a soft velvet texture in silvery grey.
SCENTED GERANIUM - The best foliage/filer for arranging. You can easily grow this from a cutting too if you want to share with another gardening friend.
HEUCHERIA - Beautiful brown, burgundy and Mustard leaves.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED ~ seed raising mix, compost, manure, bulb/plant food and fertiliser, spade, gloves, seed trays, seeds/seedlings/bulbs, stakes (for tying plants up) and a love of flowers. Dig in!
TO SUMMARISE (HOW TO GROW YOUR OWN FLOWERS)
1.Create a garden/space
2.Choose one favourite bloom for each season you’d love to grow.
3.Sow or plant! Follow the instructions on the packet ie. germination temperature needed/time of year to sow/plant etc.
4. Feed, water and weed.
4.Pick and enjoy!
If you’d don’t have the time or space to grow your own I would love to pick a bunch of flowers for your table - you can order them here - Flowers At The Gate. For $5 off use the code 5OFFTHEGATE. Free delivery within Kihikihi.
Happy Gardening!
Anna X
