Growing flowers for cutting in a smaller garden

So, a wee bit of sun and slightly warmer temperatures. Let's start talking flowers.

I am on Sarah Raven's blog this week, talking about growing flowers to cut in a smaller garden situation. It is something I feel pretty passionate about. I think quite a lot of people get put off trying to grow cut flowers because they feel they need a lot of space, perhaps even an allotment, kitchen garden or at least a designated flowerbed of some size. But it isn't so, I think if you have a garden, however small, there are ways to grow flowers that you can cut and enjoy close up in your home or give to friends. Other people never get started because feel they need a lot of knowledge before they get going in the garden - I was clueless when I started, there is nothing like learning growing flowers by doing, yes reading and asking lots of questions is really useful, but the adventure is in the doing - if I can, truly all can! A garden is the most amazing teacher, and you learn more than just gardening when your hands hit the soil and the journey begins. 

The satisfaction of growing flowers yourself - choosing the varieties, learning about sowing seed and seeing those first seedlings appear is incredible. If the idea of growing from seed is intimidating, than for an admittedly slightly higher cost, you can, of course, buy seedlings or decent-sized plug plants - but discovering the joy of nurturing a small seed or plant to its full glory and then reaping the bounty of buckets full of fresh flowers - honestly it is the shizzle.

Pop over to Garlic and Saphhire, for tons of tips to get started, and please add any comments if you have questions or tips of your own, I'd love to hear them. If you would like to read a whole series of blogposts about growing flowers, there is one on my blog here, just hit the link at the bottom of this page or on my 'Flowers" page. And please let me know about your growing adventures - you have no idea how excited I am to hear others getting the bug!

simple flowers

Sometimes, especially in the cold, lean months of winter when there are so few plants in flower, the simplest plants become the quiet stars - their very smallness requiring close observation to appreciate the details.  In my experience, close observation of flowers is a very wonder-full and life enhancing thing!

I think it is a great idea to plant enough snowdrops so that they can be picked to take indoors without feeling any damage has been done on the display in the garden? They are such a potent and long awaited symbol that winter is drawing to an end, and so pristine and simple, I love having a little bottle of them on my bedside table in January and February. If you plant the variety, elwesii, you will have ones that give out a delicious and subtle honey scent as a bonus.

Pots of forced narcissi, on the kitchen table or window sill are a little blast of sunshiny happy too - mine have grown a little drunkenly, but I love their cheerfulness!

These are the flowers I am bringing to Jane's flowers-in-the-house party, thanks for hosting Jane! xx

Talking alliums on the Sarah Raven blog

Hi lovelies, I am over at the Sarah Raven blog, Garlic and Sapphire today, talking about one of my favourite garden stalwarts, alliums. If you haven't tried growing them and want some low/no maintenance, drop dead gorgeous glamour of the pink-purple-white variety in your garden from about May to September, then alliums are your new best friend. There are a bunch of different ones I rely on for different sizes and colours, so pop over for some top tips and photos by way of a guide. You can still plant them now for a display to knock your socks off in 2013. If you have grown any with success or have some favourites I haven't mentioned, please leave your comments over there, I'd love to know what has worked for you, and perhaps discover some new ones to tempt me! Thanks. xx

last little jugful of Indian summer

The golden Indian summer we were enjoying seems to have been chased off by a fury of wind and rain that is lashing against the window panes as I write. As fast as you can say applecrumblewithcustard we have taken to lighting the woodburner as it turns dark and I am in the market for a new pair of wellies.

Which has all left me woefully unprepared for Jane's monthly flowers-in-the-house shindig. It is just too ghastly to contemplate cutting flowers in the rain and muddy flowerbeds while my sweetpeas and anemones from last week finally hit the compost heap at the weekend.

So my rather paltry offering this time, is the remaining jugful of white cosmos, not looking their perkiest    after four days, but still a poignant little reminder of warmer days in the garden and that gorgeous summer sunshine that has finally said its goodbyes. A last little flowery image of summer....

I'm also sharing this post over at Flower Patch Farmgirl. Do you know her? She writes like a dream.

september inspirations

September in the country lanes and field margins of England.

The slanting sunlight, the fiery evening skies, the stubble in the fields and the rash of red berries in the hedgerows - I love them all.

There is something about the swaying ranks of seed heads and airy branching grasses and seed pods that makes me want to rush to my sketch book and work bench, and explore the shapes and textures in silver. So this time of year, I am totally in my element, and find it the most creative moment of the year.

I'm not quite sure where all this inspiration will take my designs, but here is what I was playing with today, unfinished but formulating slowly.

The following two sunday afternoons I will be showing my jewellery at a studio in Hitchin as part of Herts Open Studios -(at 3 Brook View) - do pop in if you are nearby!

the cutting patch series: over and out with Lotte and Bloom

The final post in the cutting patch series given to you by Lotte and Bloom [which just goes to show how much even the most uber-stylish florist loves those garden flowers - yeeee haa!:)]

like most florists i'm mostly reliant on dutch flowers. they're trusty old workhorses; strong, predictable and (usually) not too many surprises. in the main this works well for wedding work, but in my heart it's the english grown stuff i secretly pine for. i adore the the way you can't really know what you'll get until the 11th hour, the imperfections and the glitches - it makes whatever haul you can gather all the more sweet.

in another life i'd love to grow. i'm so inspired by people like erin @ floret who completely kill it - not only are her flowers knockout but the things she makes with them makes my heart explode.

but back to reality, the way i try to combine the two is by incorporating a little of the garden into my work wherever i can. foxgloves, brambles, any and all flowering branches, pampas grass and seedheads...pretty much anything that catches my eye really. 

obviously, i'd never in a million years get away with it at a wedding but in my own house i love having stuff around that is well past it's best. the disintigration of flowers and foliage, the way leaves crisp and curl and darken as they head towards the grave - i can't get enough of it and for my money late autumn is the best season of all.

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Huge thanks to Lotte, and to those of you who have followed this series, I hope you found something useful or inspiring along the way!

cutting patch series: a shout out for tulips

I've been up since 3 am, my youngest has a fiendish stomachbug poor mite.

Flagging to say the least so please don't expect to much from this penultimate cutting patch series post!

It is really just a little shout out for tulips. The next couple of weeks are perfect for tulip bulb planting so I thought I'd wave a a few favourites across your computer screen because whether they end up integrated into your existing borders, or on the edges of your cutting patch or in pots, it is just such a huge feel-good luxury to wander out into your garden in Spring and pick the most gorgeous and glamourous bucketfuls for your house or friends. And the thing is, all but the best (and often expensive) florists tend to sell same as same as tulips, pretty enough but not often ones to make you want to weep with awe. Some of those spindly, sickly ones in the supermarket are enough to make you weep, but for all the wrong reasons. I'm not being sniffy, I just think tulips are mean't to be magnificent, like peonies are or the best garden roses. If you grow your own, you can pick the ones that make your heart glad.

For me, at the moment, those are Mt Tacoma,

Spring Green,

Angelique (a shell pink cousin of Mt Tacoma), Queen of the Night,

Black Hero, Havran (two more dark and sultry beauties), Abu Hussan for some zing!

Of course there are a bajillion varieties too choose from, online Sarah Raven and J Parkers will give you a good place to start looking around. Just remember to plant them good and deep and dream of their loveliness all winter!

Pop by next friday for the last post in this series, a wickedly stylish send off by the floral wunderkid that is Lotte and Bloom. 

cutting patch series: creating bouquets and floral arrangements - more guest post inspiration and expertise

Comeoncomeoncomeon, let's get picking those late season blooms: some roses pursuaded into glorious reflowering by our Indian summer, as well as dahlias, cosmos, zinnias, asters, old fashioned carnations, acidantheras, all still flowering away in my garden. enjoying the last of the delicious mild autumn we have been having. I think the cold is on its way, it felt properly chilly this morning, so now is the time to make the most of the last garden picked blooms, before we have to visit the markets and florists for our flowers. The fantastically talented Jaime from the Monkey Flower Group Blog is kindly guest posting here today, and honestly, whether you are using your garden flowers or shop bought ones there is no one more expert and artistic that I can think of to show us how to make the very most of our flowers once they head for a vase! Here she is, (and please pop over to her blog and you will enjoy a feast of inspiration!):

If you have implemented even one tenth of the wonderful guidelines Belinda shared in her online Cutting Patch Course, you are well on your way to growing an abundant garden full of everything you need to make a world class flower arrangement. But if you are anything like me, your neglected, -I mean,er, transitioning - garden might still be a bit light on some materials, particularly larger focal flowers (which Sarah Raven and Belinda refer to as the "brides" of the arrangement). So for the meantime, I've put together a few steps to make the most of your bounty, even if all you have to work with is a bunch of "bridesmaids".

1. Identify your strong points and determine a limited palette

Walk through the garden, take a look at what is most abundant, and let this material set the tone for the arrangement. If like me you find you are working with mostly smaller ("filler" or "bridesmaid" flowers), consider limiting the palette to just a few colors, preferably adjacent on the color wheel. This is a personal choice, of course, but I find that using a lot of different colors and small flowers can make for a bit of a chaotic feeling arrangement.

For example, the most abundant thing in my garden these days is the readily re-seeding annual, borage. So while I might have struggled to pick enough in an edgy palette of purples, pinks, and limey greens, like this . . .

 . . . and still ended up with a bit of a busy feeling arrangement, I opted instead to drop that shocking limey green California fuchsia altogether and focus instead on a more limited palette of pink, lavender, purple, blue, and silvery blue greens, accented with a pop of white:

The above lineup includes buddleia, borage, perennial sweet pea, lavender, pink jasmine, (puny) scabiosa, and ornamental oregano. Later I went out and picked some nepeta, too.

2. Select and prepare your vase

For an arrangement of smaller flowers, I like to use a vase that is interesting be not so much so as to distract from the flowers themselves.

For example, the elevated bowl of this pedestal vase offers interest, but the clear glass keeps it simple and lets the flowers shine:

Unfortunately, the elevated bowl is also very tricky to work in. I struggled with this vase for a while before discovering that stretching chicken wire across the vase's mouth in a concave bowl shape is a huge help. Just cut a strip of galvanized chicken wire (from your local hardware store), parrellel to the twisted segments of the weave (this makes for a more rigid strip of chicken wire than you would have if cutting perpendicular to the twisted segments):

Next, press the chicken wire strip into a concave bowl shape, and secure it to the edges of the vase so that it will sit just at or below the water level. In the following image you can see I use waterproof florists' tape to secure the chicken wire around the entire vase circumference, but I have since transitioned to using heavy duty cotton or silk quilters' thread, which is more secure, biodegradable, and not petroleum based (like the tape). Just loop the thread through two corners of the chicken wire strip, crisscross the thread ends across the bottom of the bowl, loop them through the remaining chicken wire strip corners, and tie them together in a square knot. I find blue or green thread blends in nicely, though it is still slightly visible from some angles.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say what a fan I am of chicken wire! It is an incredibly versatile mechanical aid, easy to use, re-use, store, and eventually recycle (most areas accept it gladly - as scrap metal -  but check with your local agency). However, there are still a few design scenarios which demand the use of floral foam (such as very, very shallow containers); when a client wants something like this, I offer suggestions for alternative designs and explain why I have chosen never to use floral foam. It is petroleum based, impossible to recycle, does not biodegrade, contains two known carcinogenic ingredients (carbon black and formaldehyde), and is classified as a hazardous material by OSHA. The Material Safety Data Sheet for Oasis Floral Foam really drives these points home, so I am grateful that my friend Pilar of Gorgeous and Green in Berkeley posted it for easy viewing here on her blog.

I am also grateful that I am able to make these decisions in my studio, and understand that is not always possible in larger shops where the convenience of floral foam has made it seem almost like a necessity over the years. But I hope little by little the negative externalities of this product will be more widely known, and that someday not using floral foam will no longer be viewed as a luxury. Anyways, I digress . . .

3. Build your arrangement

This is a good place to refer back to earlier posts on the Cutting Patch Course. But I'll also add some general steps.

Start with your abundant filler, taking care to cover the edges of the vase and the chicken wire:

Continue adding other materials in monobotanical groups so as to maximize the impact of the smaller flowers:

Finally, add any vines you may have, looping them around and over the other flowers to soften the edges of the arrangement:

4. Assess and correct the effect of your arrangement

Take a look at your arrangement. How does it make you feel? This is obviously a subjective process, but since you are the designer you get to be the judge. If the feeling is positive, such as "energizing" or "calming", move on to step 5! But if the feeling is more negative, such as "jarring" or "busy", step away for a few minutes before trying some adjustments.

To me, the arrangement (above) felt busy without being energizing, so I decided to try removing the pink sweet pea to focus in on this even more limited palette:

I think this resulted in a much more pleasing, soft, and calm arrangement:

5. Enjoy and share your arrangement

Part of the enjoyment of fresh flowers comes from taking care of them as they age and change. Belinda's Cutting Patch Course offers great advice on how to do this.

Another part of the enjoyment comes from sharing your work with others, so place your finished arrangement somewhere it can be seen thougho ut the day. And if you would like to photograph your flowers and share them with people in other places or at a later time, be sure to get up close and focus on little details which read well in person but get lost in a little photograph:

Best of luck, and have fun!

Jaime Giorgi

The Monkey Flower Group

Napa, CA

Fabulous guest post

I have having awful problems with Blogger today, but please check out today's truly fabulous guest post by clicking on the previous post ( "older post" below)- thank you!

Tales from the Design Room: Jane's top floristry tips

It is all happening today at Wild Acre! The super talented florist, Jane from Small but Charming blog, has kindly written the most wonderful guest post here, full of top tips for arranging flowers in more tricky shaped vases, pots and urns. She has spent many professional moons creating fabulous floral arrangements for all sorts of events  - for brides, heads of state, you name it, so you are getting tip top pro advice here today!! If you have any special tricks you use, do share with us would you? The great thing about these friday posts has been the sharing of info and experiences, so if you are a whizz with chicken wire, or use those froggy things, or have any other cunning tips to arrange your flowers, we'd LOVE to know!

And, please, pop over to Jane's blog too, most of you probably already do, but if you haven't discovered that biggest hearted, funny and inspiring blog, blimey you have a treat in store this happy friday!

Tales From The Design Room

A few months back the lovely and talented Belinda asked if I would chime in on a Friday with a guest post on flower arranging tips.

If, like myself, you're a devoted reader of Wild Acre you already know that Belinda's got it all going on, with not only designing bouquets but growing the flowers themselves.

So why am I here you ( we) may wonder.

Because I am a florist with many years experience and I have an eternally sore shoulder to show for it. We do all kinds of arrangements from weddings to funerals to baby showers to dozens of roses to simple bunches of wild flowers. So I'll see if I can think of anything new to add to Belinda's encyclopedic knowledge of all thing floral.

Party Trick #1: Some florists use a block of floral foam made by Oasis to fill containers with wide mouths or small spaces that wouldn't hold water comfortably. Oasis can be found at any craft store. Other designers prefer not to use the foam as it is a petroleum based product. (If you feel strongly about this issue you can instead use balls of chicken wire crumbled up to fit the space).  We soak the foam in water until it sinks under its weight, then cut it to size and fill the container.  I've chosen some pictures from a post I did last year using oasis to fill miniature pumpkins with flowers and berries.

Tomorrow I'll be filling two cowboy boots and hats with flowers, first fitting them with a container and oasis then going wild with autumn flowers and berries. Thankfully they are new boots, once a customer took her riding boots off in the store and gave them to me for a memorial arrangement.  Enough said.

Oasis is  also effective for a large urn or compote.  Once again find a liner that fits, add wet foam and design your hearts out.  Branches or curly willow stems stay firmly anchored and you can tuck the flowers around them at will.

This arrangement traveled to a friend's wedding last Saturday night.  It moved from room to room during the celebration and was last seen held aloft by the bridegroom as he and the bride hopped in a cab off to the penthouse suite at the Four Seasons.  Oasis can travel in some pretty fancy circles.

Party Trick #2: One of my favorite part of any wedding or party is the centerpieces.  We do them is all kinds of containers.  Clear glass lined with a few leaves or a swirl of curly willow tips in the water, old family silver pieces, sometimes a terra cotta pot or a milk glass compote. 

When we are using a glass container we take a 1/4 clear oasis tape and run it round the circumference of the vase, then tape from side to side in a grid pattern.  When finished weaving the grid we run another strip around the outside lip securing the structure.  And then we begin to tuck away.  I start with 3 of the larger flowers off center, then arch off to the sides, turning some flowers up and some down creating movement.  The accessories are the most fun.  In the fall this would include clusters of berries, stems of grass, leaves and of course for the holidays a miniature pumpkin or lady apple polishes to a fine sheen and secured on a wooden skewer.  These can be nestled in among the flowers.

But probably as you all suspected, though I spend my days surrounded by floral bounty both local and global, at home I prefer an armful of of garden fresh flowers, cut first thing in the morning, stems stripped of any leaves or debris then plunged into tepid water and plonked on a table to be enjoyed all week.

I am after all a simple girl at heart:)