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The cutting garden is starting to come alive, slowly, but it’s getting there. The spring bulbs have all faded and made room for the huge big Allium Christophii flowers along with the Allium siculum which the bees are getting dizzy on! Watching the annual seeds germinate is a joy and as the young plants are hardened off and planted out, it fills me with excitement at what the cut flower patch will look like soon.
I grow many cut flowers on the allotment from Dahlias to Peonies, Delphiniums to Gladiolus but there is something really special about the small area of annuals just outside my Rhino Greenhouse. I direct sow many but I also like to get some started earlier in the season and keep them protected in the greenhouse. Most are hardened off in late May to early June and planted out, others such as the sweet peas and some directly sown nigella, ammi visnaga, wild carrot and godetia are growing happily already outside.
Some of my favourite annuals are the humble French marigold which are easy to grow from seed and perfect as companion plants. I love cosmos for their big feathery foliage and colourful flowers in pink, white or yellow. Then there are an array of colourful zinnias and tall, happy sunflowers, Cerinthe major, cornflowers and calendula are others that grow feely on my allotment. A truly colourful variety of cut flowers and all very easy to collect seeds from for sowing the following year.
Fill your garden with flowers because they really do make you happy and when you can take some for an indoors vase, you’ll smile every time you pass them by.
