Pick that rose!

First of all two confessions. I'm a bit late this week with my bunch. On Friday toddler was a bit ill, nothing that a bit of calpol couldn't resolve, but nevertheless. Then on Saturday morning, it rained. No, it poured. Flowers need to be picked early in the morning as that gives them the longest vase life, so I cowardly decided to postpone for another day and headed out to pick early Sunday morning instead.

Now my second confession. Last week's bunch only lasted for two days. I left it in the hot conservatory and the roses really couldn't handle that. They basically fully opened in a day and after one more day it was all over. Surprisingly the foxgloves did really well. They were still great after five days in the full blazing sun and I should have just moved the bunch, picked new roses and continued to enjoy it, but it was a mad week and I simply didn't get around to it. 

In the last few days all of my rose bushes have covered themselves in blooms. Roses flower for months but, with a few exceptions, only if you keep deadheading them. Most varieties will stop producing flowers once they have set seeds ie hips so you need to trick them into continuing producing flowers by removing every single one when finished flowering. Picking some for a vase is of course having the same effect and will only encourage your bush to produce more flowers while you enjoy some indoors!

Left is Munstead Wood, which is a marvelous deep crimson rose with a terrific scent and an intricate shape. 









In the next vase I've put another three of my fragrant favourites, the yellow Golden Celebration, Fellowship (orange) and Tess D'Urberville (red). 

The above roses are all from the garden. On the allotment I have three Queen of Sweden bushes specifically for cut flowers. The carnations have also started to bloom, and the Sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus) nearly. With a bit of rosemary it makes a lovely bunch! 

I have moved all of these out of the sun and am sure that they will last longer than last week's bunch. I'll let you know next week.

Pickings from the garden, again

A thousand buds - okay, maybe a hundred but a lot nevertheless-  but no blooms yet on the cutting patch on the allotment. This meant that I had to resort again to picking flowers from the garden. No easy task, or better, no easy choice.

Granny's bonnets? 

 Front left Aquilegia vulgaris 'William Guiness' or Magpie
Front right Aquilegia vulgaris 'Miss M.I. Huish'
The white one behind is Aquilegia vulgaris "Green Apples"

Or maybe these onions relatives? 

Allium 'Purple sensation' with more Aquilegia vulgaris 'Miss M.I. Huish' to the right.

I only want to pick flowers from the garden if it isn't too noticeable. Therefore the alliums were out, but the granny's bonnets definitely were an option. For the same reason picking some blooms of my Golden Celebration rose was fine and I also cut three foxglove stems (Digitalis purpurea 'Dalmatian Cream'). For foliage I added two of my favourite herbs: Tashkent mint and rosemary. 

One tip is not to arrange your bunch in your vase, but arrange it in your hands especially if you pick from the garden. Commercial florists also do this and that is with flowers with long straight stems, which obviously is often not the case for garden flowers. In order not to ruin my displays, I work with what I pick. 

First of all condition all the flowers as necessary. For this bunch I dipped the roses and the mint in boiling water and I cut the foxgloves under water.  Then start with the flower that is going to be in the center. Hold this one in your "other" hand (ie left if you're right handed and vice versa). Hold this with your fingers at your vase's height. Next add rings of flowers, adding while turning the bunch around in your hand. Try to arrange your flowers like an hourglass. If you have any flowers that have shorter stems than you would have preferred, add them last. In that way they will be at the edge of the vase, where their shorter stem is an advantage. Before you put the flowers in the vase, cut any that are obviously too long (which may mean having to recondition them). If they are roughly the same size, it won't be necessary. 

I love the way this bunch has turned out, especially the scent of the roses is wonderful!

About dragons and hats

Common names for plants are sometimes so much fun. If I were to call Aquilegia's and Antirrhinums by their common names they instantly gain in character. The flowerhead of an Aquilegia has the shape of a hat, albeit a somewhat old fashioned one. Therefore the name Granny's Bonnet is very suitable. Antirrhinums look slightly more fiery than the sweetly-shaped Granny's Bonnets. Their unusual shaped individual flowers have a "mouth" which, if gently squeezed from behind, can be snapped open and shut and hence the name Snapdragons is very appropriate. 

Snapdragons are normally annuals in the UK climate but because of the mild winter some of my Antirrhinum majus 'Royal Bride' actually survived. I was pleasantly surprised that they came into flower this week and of course I had to use them in this week's bunch. Last year I also sowed quite a few Granny's Bonnets which are now flowering abundantly in the garden. I am not sure which variety I picked today. Most likely it isn't even a special variety as Granny's Bonnets are notorious for not coming true to seed and this one grows on the allotment.

I combined both with some lovely Euphorbia Oblongata as well as a random white Gerbera and a white-yellow Aquilegia (Swan mix, I think). I love the end result!

Fragrance before vase life

Spring, spring, spring. Unfortunately it is that time in spring when most tulips are fading away, the alliums aren't yet flowering and it's waiting for all the annuals. I'm in the process of planting out my sweet peas, but that of course is no good for this week's vase.

Not to despair, along with lilacs there is another fragrant spring flower that is absolutely worth having in the house: wisteria. I've never cut wisteria before and I do expect it to be as fleeting a cut flower as lilac. The latter only lasted a few days (but I still have the two possies and one vase with the tulips and ranunculus from Sunday). Nevertheless worth it of course for the lovely scent.

The majority of commercial cut flowers don't have any fragrance. They have been bred to look good for long. This is one reason to grow your own. Why have artificial fragrance in the house when you can have the real thing? Essential oils are probably the nearest you can get to real flowers, but those still require a complicated process in order to end up in the bottle that you buy. Some fragrance is however "uncapturable", like there is no sweet pea essential oil. So if you want sweet pea scent in your house, you need the real thing. Apparently you can capture the scent of wisteria by mixing dried wisteria with an oil like grapeseed, but this is different from an essential oil which uses a process of steam distillation or solvent extraction. 

As it happens I have a wall of the real thing, so no need for me to use dried wisteria yet (although I may try that as well). I split the stems and put them in warm water which hopefully helps them staying fresh for longer.

I decided to combine it with another abundant flower at this time: Anthriscus sylvestris, or Queen Anne's lace, also known under the less flattering name of cow parsley. When you have a good look at it you can see why it is called after lace crafted by a queen even though it isn't clear which Queen Anne. I seared the stems in boiling water hoping that this will make them last a bit longer, or at least as long as the wisteria. I'll let you know next week!