Growing from seed is the most cost-effective way to fill your garden with the plants that you want and that can include cut flowers. You can grow lots of great varieties of flowering plants from seed quite easily and what’s more when you grow from seed, you generate many more plants that you can share with others, or split the packets of seeds with friends and family.
There really is little nicer than going out and gathering a posy of flowers to brighten a room or to gift to someone you are meeting for coffee or visiting? And you don’t need exotic blooms to make a reasonable bunch of cut flowers. You’ve probably already got plants in your garden that flower to bulk out a posy of flowers. Things like Alchemilla mollis and Verbena bonariensis are great fillers for a vase of cut flowers and of course every posy needs some foliage or colourful stems to add texture and form to the arrangement.
Choosing what to grow
Sometimes choosing what to grow will depend on your growing facilities and the space you have to grow things on. If you are starting out concentrate on hardy annuals that don’t need frost protection and could be grown in pots inside a cold frame outside or even sown direct into the soil. It’s a good idea to do a bit of research first; you might do that by ordering some seed catalogues or by going online to browse cut flower seeds. Be careful. It’s really easy to get carried away. Another way is to look at the gardening magazines on the newsstand, in spring, many of them carry packets of free seed on the cover so look out for cut flower seeds while you browse.
There are so many great things to grow this season.
If you need some ideas of plants that are easy to raise from seed that produce beautiful flowers you can pick and enjoy as cut flowers you really can’t go wrong with cosmos. It’s a fab garden plant. Garden centres sell single plants for £3-£6 each. You can grow dozens very easily from one packet of seed. They are easy to grow and great flowers for pollinators too. Plus, there are so many really beautiful strains.
Sweet peas are another really popular flower to grow for cut flowers. There are dozens of different colours many with very rich fragrance. Easy to grow, hardy and each plant will produce a generous number of flowers, the secret to keep them flowering is to keep picking the flowers, just perfect if you are growing them for cut flowers.
Antirrhinums are another amazing plant for cut flowers (see main image). Easy from seed and each plant produces fabulous spires of incredible flowers. There are lots of colourways available and the plants are hardy too.
Sunflowers always seem a bit exotic when added to a bouquet and yet they are easy to grow from seed and there’s a huge variety of colours and plant shapes. Some are short with several flowers per plant and others are the giants with one or two large flower heads. Popular with pollinators and the seed heads help feed the birds too.
Honesty is honestly such a lovely garden plant, look out for the dark purple foliaged ‘Chedglow’ which has rich purple flowers. You can cut the flowers, or leave them for the pollinators and harvest the seed heads instead? The kids love the moon like seed pods especially when you tell them that the scientific name is Lunaria, after the moon herself.
If you just want to scatter some seeds into a seed bed then choose something like Love in a mist (Nigella) or pot marigolds (calendula), cornflowers or Californian poppies (escholtzia). These are just so easy to grow. Rake the soil to a fine tilth and scatter a few seeds over the surface, gently rake again and water in. Cover with bamboo cloches to protect the emerging seedlings from cats scratching in the soil.
For a lacy effect in your flower arrangements don’t forget the umbellifers now called apiaceae, not only are they great plants for pollinators, but they are also easy from seed and beautiful for cutting. Look out for Ammi majus, Orlaya grandiflora, wild carrot and even dill and fennel.
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