Growing cut flowers
We are getting a lot of questions about which plants to choose for a bed for cut flowers at the moment on the nursery, so we decided that would be a good topic for a post.
We are really happy to get these questions, we are always happy when people have an idea in mind for their garden and want our advice on that. Growing your own cut flowers is so much better than buying bunches from the supermarket or filling station. No chemicals, more variety. Your bunches of flowers will be unique and exactly what you want them to be. If you don’t have space or time to grow your own flowers try to buy your cut flowers from a small Irish grower at your local farmers market or café.
If you are making a bed for cut flowers a sunny spot, sheltered from the wind is best. Using certified organic, Irish grown, hardy perennials will be the best for your garden and the environment as well as ensuring that your garden grows better and more bountiful year on year as a garden should. Annuals may have their places at times, to be dotted in odd places to add a bit of extra colour, but hardy perennials should form the bones of your cut flower bed. They will often have a second flowering if tended to, and have a longer flowering period and longer lasting blooms than annuals. Perennials come back bigger each year, so the cost and work of planting again each year is avoided. With a little planning and fore thought you can create a cut flower bed for even as little as €100. This in our nursery will give you 24 plants (plants are usually €5 each but we have a special on site deal of any six plants for €25 when you pick the plants out yourself). Plus, for every €50 you spend on the nursery you get a free plant from the freebie table, these change regularly by the way. So for your €100 you would get 26 plants to start a cut flower bed. You should plant 5 plants per square metre, so this would give you a cut flower bed of just over 5 x 1m square blocks.
Its tempting to grab one of every variety that you love but you need to consider how many flowers an individual plant will bear, and how you want your bed to look after you’ve taken all the cut flowers that you want. I find that cut flowers that I take from the garden last easily two weeks in the house, even in the warmer kitchen. The flowers in the cooler bathroom last three weeks at least. The lifespan of the bunches of flowers that you cut for the house means that you won’t have to cut every flower from your bed, and you’ll be able to enjoy the bed in the garden for itself as a beautiful flower bed that you planned as well as having cut flowers from the garden in as many rooms of the house as you like.
So back to our bed and our example of 26 plants. Some will give us lots of flowers and will clump out quickly, for example Rudbeckias and Symphyotrichums. Others give less blooms per plant and so we would need more for a bed that will be used to harvest cut flowers from.
I have sketched out two quick examples- one for €100 as a starter cut flower bed and another €100 bed, together they will make a comprehensive all summer and well into the late autumn cut flower bed with variations in shapes, textures and colours. We use our basic rule of 5 plants per meter squared here.
Bed #1; Rudbeckia x 3
Symphyotrichum x 2
Achillea x 3
Chrysanthemum x 3
Monarda x 3
Nepeta x 3
Polemonium x 3
Solidago x 1
Thallictrum x 3
plus 2 x choices from the current freebie table during your visit.
If you have some more space I’ve put together a suggested list to add some more variety to your cut flowers- this list is for the same amount of space (and the same cost as above. Each takes up 5 x 1m squared and each costs €100).
Bed #2; Amsonia x 5
Catanache x 5
Geum x 3
Eryngium x 3
Helenium x 5
Artemisia lactiflora x 3
plus 2 x choices from the current freebie table during your visit.
You may notice that the flowers in the above lists have a wide variety of shapes of flowers and foliage and different flowering times. This adds interest and variety to the bunches of flowers that you can put together, if you’re making them at home no need to choose the same varieties as commonly used commercially.
Note also that on the above lists I have used only the species name and not specific variety names. We have for example seven Geums currently on the nursery. This omission was conscious, these lists are set as a rough idea and still allowing scope for anyone who follows them to make a flower bed unique to them and their tastes.
We propagate our plants ourselves and so we have a limited yearly production. If a variety that you want is sold out just have a chat with one of us and we will be able to suggest a few alternatives for you or let you know when the variety you are interested in will be back in our sales area.
We put together a few photos of some plants that make for really good cut flowers- not all of these are mentioned on the above lists, but we just had to include them. For more suggestions click on this link https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e9db47e5fe2ec324b68b53b/t/620cd10c54ea6050fca6b49c/1645007122722/5.+Caherhurley+cutflower+plants.pdf (other useful lists can be found on our ‘Lists to help you choose your plants’ page). All of these lists are in an easy to print or download format. They are well worth looking through, they cover loads of topics from plants that rabbits don’t like to plants the can survive in a costal garden.
Due to increasing demand some varieties may be sold out and temporarily out of stock. In our online shop we only list the plants that are available currently. Rest assured that any our out of stock plants are in the production process on the Nursery.
