Cut Flowers

GROW YOUR OWN CUT FLOWERS    

 I love to see an attractive garden with a show of flowers in some part in every month of the year. This is quite possible with a wee bit of knowledge of plants and some careful planning. However the garden is part of the home so many of the flowers end up in a vase, table decoration or grown in a pot for a colourful windowsill.

This is where I am often very unpopular as many people feel that flowers are for picking. They certainly do brighten up the home, but at the expense of my outdoor displays, so I have always set aside a part of my garden or allotment specifically to grow cut flower for the house. This saves the loss to my outdoor flower beds.

The range of plants suitable for cut flowers is immense and can cover every month in the year. Suitable flowers can be tall like gladioli for a bold impressive vase or small like pansies for a table decoration in a small bowl using oasis to keep them moist. The vase or bowl is often enhanced with some greenery using foliage from plants not necessarily linked to the cut flower.

Flowers by the season

Spring belongs to the flowering bulbs of daffodils, narcissus, tulips and iris.

In summer there is plenty to choose from with roses, carnations, gladioli, sweet peas, dahlias, lilies and chrysanthemums.

Autumn cut flowers include the later chrysanthemums that may need some protection, Michaelmas daisies, and again roses that just keep flowering if they can get a bit of warm sunshine.

In winter we might begin to struggle a bit for a wide range, but shrubs such as Viburnum fragrans can help us out for table decorations, and some plants such as perpetual carnations given some greenhouse conditions will fill the gap. A good table decoration for Christmas can be made with a few red carnations in oasis surrounded with yellow jasmine. Freesias are very welcome in winter, but need a glasshouse for protection. Late blooming chrysanthemums can be grown in pots or wire baskets outdoors then brought inside under glass to complete their flowering up till Christmas.

Herbaceous and annuals

Many herbaceous plants are tall and strong and will last well when used for cut flower. Flag iris are my favourite as the flowers are bright, bold and scented. Pyrethrum and Doronicums are for the early season and phlox, Japanese anemone and michaelmas daisies for late summer.

Good annual plants grown from seeds include snapdragons, larkspur, helichrysum, cornflower, sweet William and the scented stocks.

Bulbs and corms

Daffodils, narcissus and tulips can usually be found a spot out of the way under some shrubs or even under a fruiting bramble. Their seasons work well together. I grow my alliums and lilies under the shrubs of my coloured stemmed winter border and my Azalea beds where they all live in a happy association.
Many Daffodil and tulip bulbs start off in pots in late summer to be forced outdoors then brought under glass to complete their flowering. If the pots are small they are fine indoors, but sometimes the flowers are cut if the pots are too big.

Freesias can either be used as pot grown or cut flower started as seed or small bulbs. They will need a glasshouse but the blooms make excellent cut flowers with a heady scent.

Favourites

Roses have a long season with National Trust a deep red with perfectly formed heads, but unfortunately no scent. Ingrid Bergman, another red, is vigorous, produces many flowers and is scented. Margaret Merril is a white with pink blush and scented, as is Pure Bliss a pale pink rose. Golden Celebration is a good yellow strong grower with scent. 
Chrysanthemums have a wide range of colours available and may be grown as sprays or as single blooms on a stem. Sprays are easy to grow and require no disbudding, but decorative, incurves and reflex blooms need summer disbudding to leave the centre bud to develop into a large flower. I grow mine in a two foot wide bed and support the flowers with six inch mesh fencing wire held firm between four posts. As the plants grow the wire is raised up the end posts. You can plant out the bed as one plant in each six inch square mesh and grow the flower on one stem
without stopping the main shoot. This will make it flower earlier than one which is stopped and branched.
Carnations are long lasting and many have a deep clove scent. Grow them in a bed or single row and support the flowers with canes. Border carnations and pinks are grown outdoors for summer flowering, but perpetual flowering carnations can be flowered all year round in a glasshouse.
Dahlias are excellent as a cut flower but take up a lot of space. If you grow them for a garden display there is usually plenty of flowers for a good show and cut flowers. There is a wide range of colours and types though
decoratives and cactus are best for cut flower.
Gladioli are great value and very easy to grow. I add a few new colours every year, but save the corms from year to year. After autumn cleaning of lifted corms I select out all the biggest bulbils and sow them in a broad row to grow into new corms. Many flower in their second year.
Sweet Peas are very versatile. They can be grown up a six foot net, on a tall fence or traditionally in a double row supported with six foot canes. For a garden display they are best grown from seed in autumn or early spring, tipped after two to four leaves then after planting out left to grow unchecked. For larger blooms for cut flower grow then on a single stem tied to a cane and pinch out all tendrils and sideshoots. Sweet peas grow best a well prepared double dug trench, manured in both spits. Give a dressing of fertiliser before planting and more feeding in mid summer.

Always cut off all seed pods as they sap the strength of the plant at the expense of flowers.

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Winter Work Never Ends

WINTER WORK

We seem to be going through a hard spell for any keen gardener.  Last autumn came late and before I had a chance to gather up all the leaves the winter arrived and dumped at least two feet of snow everywhere. Many weeks later the snow melted very reluctantly, but there has been no warm sunny days to dry up the soil surface to allow digging, or other outdoor activities to proceed.

Any outdoor gardening tasks have to be planned in advance with an eye on the weather to take every opportunity to get outside if there is a few hours of dry weather.

The severe cold has taken its toll on a few plants, with my Fuchsia Mrs Popple really looking lifeless right down to ground level. She did that last year, but grew back up again from the crown. However, my palm tree, Cordyline australis has been dropping a lot of leaves and my Date palm, Phoenix canariensis, which just survived last winter looks deathly.

A garden is full of extremes as the hardier plants show their ability to survive. Aconites have started to germinate from natural scattered seeds and my Saskatoon seeds which I had to put in the cold greenhouse to keep them away from mice have also started to germinate.

The first flowers

My first snowdrops have appeared just as soon as the snow melted. It is very welcome to see the beginning of life in the garden. Aconites, Hellebores and the crocus species are all showing a bit of colour with the promise that they will open up their blooms as soon as we get a few warmer days.

Winter vegetables

The allotment has continued to provide a good supply of winter vegetables including Swedes, savoy cabbage, brussels sprouts, my last parsnip and leeks. The cold put paid to my Swiss chard and kale which I will miss in my stir fries, but I have just learnt that chopped up brussels sprouts are a very useful addition to the stir fry wok. I just have enough beetroot left for one more pot of soup, but I am amazed that they have survived unharmed underneath their blanket of snow for so long.

Onions in store are still quite firm, but all our eating apples are finished. Bramley apples stored in apple boxes in a cold garage are still very plentiful and used frequently for crumbles, sauces and pies. Any second rate apples are chopped up and simmered slowly to soften  then strained in a jelly bag to make pectin. This is used to help set strawberry, saskatoon, and apricot jams. Any other apples beginning to look not at their best are chopped up for the blackbirds.

Our last stored pumpkin will be kept a few more weeks before the soup pot comes out. I will also retain the seeds for this years pumpkin plants.

Freezer foods

The idea of a freezer is that you can have a wide range fresh fruit and vegetables all year round and to supplement any meagre winter supplies from outdoors. We have had such good outdoor crops that we are not making any serious impact to the stored crops other than to give meals some variety.

French beans, sweet corn, kale, pumpkin puree and every soft fruit grown are still ready in abundance. Jams and compote are used daily and Saskatoon pies for special occasions.

Aronias are used for jam and smoothies.

There is an awful lot to be said for growing your own fruit and vegetables. They are harvested when ripe and often eaten within minutes of picking. The flavour is intense, they have been grown without any harmful pesticides and there has been precious little air miles used up bringing them to the kitchen table.

The freezer allows us a fair bit of our fresh crops to be tasted out of season. This is a very healthy option. We get the exercise from cultivating and growing them, fresh air, sunshine, (as well as wind, rain and snow) and allotment life is a very sociable pastime.

We may not get a lot of crops out of season, but do we really want them?

I was enjoying my Scottish grapes from August to December when the last of the Black Hamburgs finally disappeared. Naturally grapes from the supermarket replaced my own crop. I then realized just how good my own grapes were compared to those imported grapes which were rather tasteless and neither juicy nor as sweet as my Scottish ripened grapes.

It is the same with tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, brambles and raspberries from every corner of the globe. They may look perfect, but try eating these hard, tasteless and not very sweet berries with no guarantee about which pesticides were used in their production.

Getting an allotment is the healthiest option.

Early sowings

Sweet peas sown two weeks ago are now through but I will grow them hardy in the cold greenhouse. Now is the time to sow onions and tomatoes. I grow my tomatoes on a windowsill for a few weeks hoping to transfer them to the greenhouse during a mild spell, but getting ready with some supplementary heating on any cold nights.

Soil cultivation

Continue with spreading manure and compost and getting it dug in as long as the ground is dry enough to work.

Pruning and shredding

Pruning has continued with the peach tree, roses, fuchsias, apples and pears. To make room for my new dwarf Cherry Cherokee and outdoor grape Solaris on a south facing fence, I am removing a mature Pyracantha and some shrub roses.

Many other garden shrubs are getting a prune to keep them in shape, remove old wood, overcrowded or weak shoots and encourage younger wood and flowers.

All of my prunings will get shredded and added to the compost heap. These get mixed with autumn leaves, grass cuttings, kitchen vegetable waste, old bedding plants and compost from hanging baskets, and growbags.

The compost heap will get turned at least once, or twice if I can find the energy. It is very hard work, but very helpful in producing brilliant compost. This will be ready in about  nine months.

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Focus on Cuttings

  WINTER PROPAGATION

 This winter season may be severe and prolonged and all outdoor plants are well and truly dormant, but gardening is very seasonal and whilst it may not be possible to do much soil cultivations, there are many tasks that can be started now.

A lot of trees, shrubs, roses, fruit bushes and ground cover plants get pruned during the dormant season and it is these prunings that can make perfect cuttings when you wish to increase your stock of plants.

This is also the time to start sowing onions, and sweet peas if they were not autumn sown. If you have a good selection of geraniums and Impatiens which you wish to retain and have taken cuttings in autumn these will now be rooted and in need of potting up. I have kept the same geraniums going for many years as I have got really good colours for a brilliant summer display.

It is always very satisfying to produce your own healthy strong plants from seed and cuttings, rather than buy the more expensive mature plants. When training to be a gardener in the Parks Department in the early sixties the competitive spirit was always very strong and there was always someone who had bigger plants, more of them or had more flowers than the next. Propagation of all plants was a mark of your skills. Rose budding at the Camperdown  nursery sorted out the men from the boys as a high percentage take, speed of budding and clean grafting were closely monitored.

Although there is not a lot of fruit and vegetables grown in the parks, you were expected to acquire gardening skills in all topics, so training covered vegetables, fruit and greenhouse work as well as planting trees, shrubs, roses and bedding plants, grass cutting and landscaping.

It was at Duntrune Terrace demonstration gardens that I got my propagation skills honed under the watchful eye of a very skilled head gardener. My first home grown fruit bushes started off from cuttings grown from the gardens own stock of the best black currant varieties.

It was all part of the training exercise of course.

Hardwood Cuttings Fruit

Black currants, red and white currants and gooseberries are all propagated similarly as mature one year old shoots about pencil thickness. Cut them to about six to eight inches long with the lower cut under a node and the top cut above a bud. Leave all the buds on unless you wish to grow them as cordons or on a bare stem as with gooseberries. For these remove all the buds except the top two or three. Gooseberries are best on a leg to help picking as the weight of crop often pulls the branches down to the ground where the fruit gets splashed with soil.

Insert the cuttings about four inches apart in open ground in rows, leaving about one third of the cutting above ground. Leave them to grow on for a year before lifting them in the dormant season to go to their permanent spot.

If you are planting a new row of blackcurrants, you will only need to buy half the required number, as it is necessary to prune a new bush down to a few buds to get it established. Each new bush will normally have about four stems which after pruning will give you four good cuttings. Plant all four cuttings together in a square about four inches apart in the place of another bush.

After three years you will not see any difference in size of the bushes.

Hardwood Cuttings Ornamental Shrubs

There is a wide range of ornamental trees, shrubs and roses that can be propagated from cuttings very similar to black currants.

Poplar and willow trees must be the easiest and you should achieve 100% rooting almost every time. Take one year old shoots and cut to about ten inches long and insert into rows four inches apart leaving a third above ground.

Cornus, philadelphus, forsythia, buddleia and most roses can be propagated as above, but other ornamentals may need a wee bit more care.

Often the best time to take these hardwood cuttings is either two weeks before or after leaf fall or in March just before dormancy breaks.

Cuttings are taken about six to eight inches long, and some, e.g. pyracantha are better with a heel. Prepare a bed in a cold frame or other sunny sheltered spot mixing a lot of grit and some old compost into the soil to open it up, improve drainage but still retain moisture. Cuttings are lined out about four inches apart in rows six inches apart.

Commercially cuttings are often bundled up in batches of about twenty then plunged into an open frame full of sand or grit with soil warming cables underneath in late autumn. This gives cool tops so nothing breaks into growth, but the bottom heat encourages the base of the cutting to form a callus. The bundles are checked regularly, and then as soon as roots are seen to break out of the callus, they are lined out in another frame in ordinary propagation medium.

Allow all the rooted cuttings to grow on for a year before lifting, keeping them watered, and in summer protect them from strong sunshine.

For those with less sophistication it is possible to use deep boxes filled with a mixture of sand and old potting compost to take the cuttings in smaller bundles and sink it onto the top of a fresh compost heap where there is still some heat. Leave them there till mid March then line them out, when they will have callused over and some may show root initials.

The yellow flowered Jasmine is very easy to grow as long stems often fall onto the ground where they will root very readily. Hydrangea petiolaris also roots itself into soil and moist walls at every opportunity.

Stratification

Many shrubs, e.g. cotoneaster, pyracantha, rowans, and saskatoons grown for their ornamental or edible berries can be propagated from seeds extracted from these berries.

Once the berries are mature remove them and squeeze out the seeds. Wash any remaining pulp off the seeds as it contains germination inhibiting hormones, then either store them for a few weeks in a fridge, or sow them in trays and keep them outdoors. Keep them watered and protected from birds and mice. Over winter them outdoors, then in spring you should get a good germination of young plants. Grow them on for another year in soil or pot them up individually.

Greenhouse plants

Grape vines are very easy to root. I take pruned shoots about twelve inches long in January and over winter them in bundles in my compost heap. In March I cut all the plump healthy stems into one bud cuttings. Cut each one above a bud and leave two or three inches of stem below that bud. These can be inserted individually in pots, or spaced out in a cellular tray and kept in the greenhouse. By mid summer they will be rooted and ready to pot into a bigger pot. Once well rooted they can grow very strongly and as they are quite hardy grow them outdoors all summer and autumn.

Geraniums that were started off as cuttings last October are now rooted. They were inserted in wide shallow pots at five to a pot, but they soon filled the pot. I take out the tops to make them branch and let light into the middle otherwise at this time of year they would get very leggy.

They are now branching very nicely so potting them up into an individual pot and giving them more space will keep them short jointed.

I try to keep my greenhouse unheated as it is better for my overwintering grape vines, but it is too cold for geraniums. They can take a few degrees of frost, but not over a long period, so I keep mine on the windowsills in the house until March when I feel it will be ok to give them cold greenhouse conditions.

If a late frost threatens I do have a heater I can use for a short period.

Sweet peas can now be sown any time in January or February if they were not autumn sown. Last year they were autumn sown then overwintered in my cold greenhouse. That allowed me to plant them out early, but unfortunately this was followed by a cold wet spring and an even wetter summer so the display was miserable. This year I am not sowing too early. The seeds are soaked over night in a glass of water, then sown the following day at three seeds to a pot and germinated in my studio. Soon after they emerge they will be hardened off before going into the cold greenhouse. They should be ready for planting in early April on a good day.

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The Scented Garden

THE SCENTED GARDEN

It is hard to beat a day of relaxation in a garden full of scented flowers on a warm sunny day. My past experience in horticulture has taught me to keep an eye on the weather forecasts and plan your work accordingly. So I have no problem getting on with the hard work on cold and wet days or pruning fruit trees or roses after a snowfall, but I like to have all my work up to date so that when the weather is warm and sunny I can stop work and relax on the patio amongst the garden flowers. It is the patio area where scented flowering plants are most appreciated.

Memories of summer always include a range of exotic scented blooms of Brugmansias, the Angels Trumpets, lilies, sweet peas, carnations and roses.

One of my earliest memories was a potting shed experience at Camperdown greenhouse as a young Parks Dept. apprentice in the sixties learning to make decorative sprays for a civic function with a combination of red roses, clove scented carnations and sweet peas. Perfume was fantastic.

Scented plants are available all year round as shrubs, perennials, annuals, bulbs, climbers and even trees.

Start with a good garden plan

My initial thoughts on establishing a new garden is to create a mature framework within which I can grow a range of plants each having their own requirements.

Garden trees get first consideration as they will require the most space, then I usually try and grow climbers up walls and fences. The essential patio must be sheltered, private, sunny and adjacent to the house, a glasshouse also needs a sunny aspect and then other plants integrated into the plan.

When selecting plants having a scent is very important especially in those areas that receive the most attention. Top priorities will be the patio area, front door entrance and even the rotary drying area. There is always plenty of scented plants to fit all these features covering every month of the year.

Trees

Selection of trees will depend on size of garden though even the smallest can get away with at least one tree. The upright Japanese cherry, Prunus Amanogawa forms a narrow column of pale pink scented blossom in spring and takes up very little space, however if more room can be afforded Prunus Shirotae, (Mount Fuji) is a beautiful site.

Most small gardens can also fit in at least one lilac, my favourite was always the double white Mme Lemoine though the rosy lilac Michel Buchner and deep purple Charles Joly are well worth a bit of space.

For the garden with plenty of space plant a balsam poplar, Populus balsamifera. In early spring the unfolding leaves emerge from large sticky buds which give off a delicious balsam scent.

Climbers

Some plants can be self supporting and others need help with strong wire support, or trellis and some plants may need a warm south facing wall whereas others are fine on north facing walls.

Climbing roses can accommodate all aspects with the vigorous soft white Mme Alfred Carriere quite happy on a north wall. I have a heavily scented shrub rose Gertrude Jekyll trained as a climber on a west wall on my patio. It is fantastic.

Honeysuckle is available in many varieties and will clamber happily over many fences.

The pineapple scented yellow flowers of Cytisus battandieri appear in mid summer and it will need a south wall and a bit of support as will the heavily scented white Jasminum polyanthum.

Sweet peas can be trained on any fence as long as it is given support and good soil. They can also be trained as cordons up a tall cane for cut flowers.

Shrubs

Garden size again dictates what size of shrub you have room for, but Daphne is quite small

whereas the mock orange, Philadelphus needs a fair bit of space. Both are available in a range of different varieties.

In late winter or early spring the Chinese witch hazel, Hamamelis mollis, Viburnum fragrans, and carlesii and Mahonia will provide a wee bit of garden scent

On a lower scale many herbs provide beautiful scents through their foliage from Rosemary, and lavender to mint and ground hugging thyme, and all can be used in cooking recipes.

Roses

Every one has their favourite roses as there are so many available, but in these times where chemicals are frowned upon and no longer available to amateur gardeners many old favourites just don't have the vigour to fight off blackspot, rust and mildew diseases.

My favourite red, E. H. Morse is still good but Wendy Cussons and Margaret Merrill go down in mid season every year. The new English shrub roses are mostly scented, fairly vigorous and come in every size and colour.

Carnations and pinks

Border carnations are very easy to grow and make excellent cut flowers, and garden pinks are perfect for trailing over walls. Select those types with the strong clove scents and make sure the soil drainage is good. There are many varieties available at garden centres as well as specialist nurseries found in garden magazines or on the internet.

Beds, tubs and hanging baskets

Spring flower beds placed near front entrance doors benefit from wallflowers with their bright colours as well as strong scent. Stocks are less popular but if you want perfume they must be included.

My summer hanging baskets are placed beside main entrances and I always include the deep blue petunia both for its strong colour as well as its scent, though seed producers never seem to give this trait much recognition.

If you have a large tub or border a specimen dot plant using a Brugmansia, the Angels Trumpets will fill the garden on any warm evening with a strong exotic perfume, but remember all parts of the plant are poisonous with a hallucinogenic chemical.

Bulbs

In spring it is the narcissus and hyacinths that reign supreme followed by flag iris, then in summer nothing can compare with the scent of exotic lilies.

There are many other scented bulbs to try if space can be found in the greenhouse. Try the Polianthus tuberosa, or the spider lily, Ismene festalis or even the sub tropical Hedychium coronarium. They all require careful looking after but the rewards make it well worth while.

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