Fresh flowers cut from the garden and brought indoors to make a pretty arrangement will instantly brighten up your house – and will cost you considerably less than buying them from the florist or supermarket.
There are plenty of cut flowers that you can grow at home; here are some of our favourites.
Roses
A huge vase of romantic garden roses is a sure sign that summer is here. Choose healthy, robust varieties with a lovely fragrance so your house will be filled with perfume, and make sure they’re repeat bloomers, or all your flowers will be gone after a couple of visits with the secateurs.
Roses come in a huge variety of sizes and colours, from gorgeous wild and old garden roses to modern roses, and hybrid teas, floribunda and shrub roses all work well in a cut flower garden.
June is prime picking month so there should be plenty of choice. Cut roses in the morning so they’re at their freshest and select some that are just opening and some more blown to give variety to your arrangement. Remember to deadhead regularly to encourage new flowers.
Sweet peas
Pretty and fragrant, the dainty sweet pea is a firm favourite as a cut flower and very rewarding to grow.
Choose flowers with long straight stems and good fragrance and pick regularly to ensure repeat flowering. You’ll have so many, you will fill all your vases and still have some left over for posies to give to friends!
Dahlias
Dahlias have a long vase life and will give you a good supply of dazzling blooms right through summer – the more you cut, the more they bloom!
And with such an array of shapes, colours and sizes to choose from, it’s no wonder the dahlia is one of the most popular flowers to grow in a cutting garden.
Oh, and they’re very popular with bees and butterflies, too...
Sunflowers
These happy flowers bring sunshine into the house on even the dullest summer day. Robust and easy to grow, sunflowers don’t need much attention to thrive and will last for up to two weeks when cut and put in water. Sunflowers are available in branching and non-branching varieties, in shades of yellow, orange and burgundy.
Lavender
Fresh lavender makes a lovely cut flower and works beautifully as a fragrant addition to a vase of roses - just make sure you remove all flowers below water level, or they will rot. If you display fresh lavender in a vase with no water, it dries on its own and its fragrance intensifies.
