Another trick up the (home) florist's sleeve

As I am away tomorrow and the whole of next week, I have been frantically trying to put as many plants in the ground, tidy up and generally make the job of watering and taking care of all my plants in my absence as easy as possible. 

As part of the tidy up I have been cutting my sweet peas, even the ones that are still very much in bud and those from my garden at home that grow up my willow wigwams and that generally I only deadhead. As it is only today and tomorrow evening that I will be able to enjoy the flowers I haven't put a large bunch together, but I thought it was a nice opportunity to show another trick up the (home) florist's sleeve. 

I have grown far too many sweet pea plants. I allowed them to overcrowd the root trainers in addition to planting them out late. This has resulted in quite some plants looking miserable and producing short stemmed flowers. But not the ones at home. I planted those out in April and each of those plants were in a root trainer on their own with a lovely and not overcrowded bunch of roots. Thus they are now healthy plant producing really long-stemmed beautiful flowers. 

From these ten plants I have picked about 20 stems today, which will of course not pack a vase, but it will still make a lovely display using a pin and some floral tack, which is best described as underwater blue tac. You use this to stick the pin at the bottom of the vase. 

As all my labels have faded away, I think that the purple-navy ones are "Lord Nelson" and the pink-red one is "Barry Dare".  I quite like the way that through using the pin the flowers aren't crowded which allows them to show their elegance. 

This year I sowed my sweet peas in January, but for next year I intend to sow this October. This will not only lead to healthier plants (especially if I follow my own advice of only one plant per root trainer!), but it also spreads the work. There is already plenty to do in spring. So if 10 plants lead to 20 stems every few days, then 40 plants should lead to 80 stems. That should be far, far enough! So this decision is was easy, but the next one is already doing my head in: what colours and how many of which variety? 

Ps Next week's bunch is going to be the weekend, as I am back late on Friday.

British Flowers Week - Flowers for someone special!

On the fifth day of British Flowers Week (www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/britishflowersweek - have a look, very inspirational) my bunch is going to be for someone else. I am not sure for whom yet and I may let someone else decide. I just decided to pick the favourites that have featured in my blogs of the last days and weeks, put them together and give them away. One of the participating florists has been leaving bunches on people's doorstep, I won't go that far, but I love the idea of just giving a bunch of flowers away. 

I've got a meeting this afternoon and I am going to take them along. I hope they will survive the cycle and train journey okay and then we'll see. As I am busy, busy, busy and need to catch a train in less than two hours, I am just going to leave you with a few pictures. 

Till next week Friday again, when the blog is going to be weekly once again!

British Flowers Week - Like a kid in a candy shop

One of my "rules" is that I can pick from other people's garden, as long as I give something back in return. I had asked a friend if I could pick flowers from her garden today in exchange for a bunch of flowers. These wonderful friends are also wonderful gardeners. They don't have a huge garden but what they have, they have filled with an absolutely brilliant array of flowers and plants. So I felt a bit like a kid in a candy shop!

For my own bunch I picked Knautia "Macedonia", Eryngium, Coreopsis, Californian poppy (Eschscholzia californica) and some lovely grass.  

I moved this vase to the bar where it is absolutely perfect. You can see it from anywhere in the room and the silhouettes of the grass, the knautia and the erygnium is stunning from every angle especially with the backlight from the window. 

Two out of these five flowers I have tried to grow and failed. I once bought a knautia plant, accidentally hoed it out out and my seed this year hasn't come up. Californian poppies I have also tried to grow a few times and this time I have a few seedlings that seem to be doing okay. Eryngium, a perennial, I have just sown and it has come up, so who knows!


I also picked some verbena, which I just popped in a green vase. Sometimes the simple things are just beautiful on their own. 

















For my friend I made a posy with white pinks and sweet peas.













I also made her a large bunch of flowers with verbena bonariensis, lavender (her garden) and sweet williams, cornflowers, Achillea ptarmica 'Double Diamond' and Love-in-a-mist seed heads (all from the allotment).

With yesterday's and today's bunches filling three vases, I am sort of running out of surfaces. However, many of the flowers from last Friday are still going strong. I have put Friday's pictures of the two bunches below. I blogged about the one on the left on Monday. 

  

The roses and a few other flowers are gone and the poppies are now small seed heads, but  there is still enough left for another vase! So on the fourth day of British Flowers Week, this is my fourth vase!

Ps Interestingly some of the cornflowers have a blue-purple tinge. They were grown from seed that I saved from cornflower "black ball" last year, but obviously it has crossed with blue ones!

British Flowers Week - It's all in the planning

It's all in the planning, and today it felt like I didn't have any. Too much to do, not sure how to fit it in or where to start. So with regards to flowers, I only made it to the allotment in the afternoon. I did a fair bit of weeding and digging in the last of the horse manure for the sweetcorn bed - yes, still not planted out, as the mice ate the whole of my first sowing, which was late anyway.  I went home with sweet peas, pinks and sweet williams, a container full of strawberries and a toddler holding her own bunch of flowers who had eaten plenty of strawberries already. 

Since I started with this blog I have panicked on several occasions thinking that I wouldn't have any flowers to make a bunch. In the end it always worked out, often with more luck than planning. But I am learning. For example, this autumn, I will definitely sow quite a few hardy annuals, from cornflowers to Ammi majus, but also sweet peas, less both in quantity and variety. I now have four large bamboo wigwams, but some plants are absolutely miserable as I only sowed them in the spring and planted them out late. Having said this, I still seem to have plenty, so I have sowed and planted far too many. 

Now is also the time to sow biennials. I have already sowed phlox, sweet williams, foxgloves, Canterbury bells and hope to sow a few more such as wallflowers in the coming weeks. Sowing biennials as well as making autumn sowings should help both spread the pickings and reduce the work in spring.

One of the things that is most definitely going to help me with planning for next year is the brilliant British Flowers Chart which was produced by New Covent Garden Flower Market for this year's British Flowers Week. Here you can find details of how to get one yourself. You can download a printable (A4 or A3) pdf. In case you are lucky enough to be able to visit the market this week, they are handing A1 posters out or you can buy one and have it sent to you. If you don't have the time or space to grow your own this chart will help you to know what British flowers should be around when and you can ask your florists for these. 

So now for today's bunch. Yesterday after picking lavender and indulging myself in it scent, I decided that I was going to go for fragrant flowers. Being inspired by some of the great pictures on www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/britishflowersweek I made a hand tied posy, without any foliage.

Ps if you pick your flowers and you find little black beetles (pollen beetles) all over them, put it in a dark place, like a shed, with the door slightly ajar. Leave it there for a few hours and the beetles will fly away to the light. This is what I ended up doing with this posy. It didn't work 100%, but quite a great deal.

British Flowers Week - Something for now, something for later

Part of our flower garden is only created a little bit more than a year ago when we took down a dilapidated garage. Quite a few of the perennial plants that we put in are still relatively small, but some need a bit of reminding of what their designated space is and some annuals have taken over far more of their allocated space by self-sowing after I put them in last year. 

So I tried to tidy up a bit and ended up with this small posy, consisting of some papaver somniferum (self-sown and no doubt a result of a cross of some sort), rosemary and Darcy Bussell roses (a David Austin rose).

Darcey Bussell is one of my favourite roses. It has a fruity fragrance that isn't sweet or heavy, but just very nice. The roses form a perfect rosette, but not identical so each one is slightly different which I think adds to its character. I've never picked one yet for a vase, so we'll see how long it will last, and that goes of course also for the poppies. 

The main task that I had set myself for today was to pick flowers for drying. If you try to eat local and seasonal then you put locally grown sprouts on the table in January instead of flown-in courgettes. This is what British Flowers Week is all about, and since I try to grow my own, I pick my own flowers now for that cold day in January or December. 

I am sure that I'll be able to make something really nice this winter with these papaver somniferum and Love-in-a-mist seedheads, lavender stalks and rose buds. I've hung them all upside down in our cupboard under the stairs, waiting for colder days. 

You can find out more about British Flowers Week here: http://www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/britishflowersweek

British Flowers Week - Why grow your own

Other than being a very enjoyable hobby, I also grow my own flowers for the same environmental reasons as people grow their own food. The British cutflower industry apparently is worth £2 Billion, but about 90% of our cutflowers are imported, often by airfreight from far away tropical places. In the meantime, local growers are often struggling. If we're thinking about foodmiles, then we should also think about flowermiles. What goes for our food, also applies to our flowers. If you wish to reduce the environmental impact of your floral passion you need to buy local, seasonal and, if you can, grow your own.

This is exactly what British Flower week is all about. It is a week‐long celebration of the wealth and variety of the Best of British cut flowers and foliage, championed by New Covent Garden Flower Market. You can follow the campaign on twitter with #BritishFlowersWeek with many growers and amateurs like myself participating. 

This week I hope -busy with all sorts of things, so no promises- to cut a bunch of flowers every day. I've cheated for this post, as I actually cut a bunch on Friday, but didn't write about it. On purpose, because I'd like to show how you can use flowers that have a short vase life in a bunch with others that have a longer vase life. 

This is my bunch on Friday. It has Achillea millefolium 'Cassis', Achillea ptarmica 'Double Diamond' (which needs to be dipped in boiled water for about 10 seconds), white Love-in-a-mist and Papaver somniferum 'Black Beauty'. Poppies are notorious for not having any vase life, but this doesn't have to be an issue as long as you don't think of your flowers being static. All of these I picked from the flower garden, so not from any specific cut flower beds.

As you can see in this picture from Friday, the Love-in-a-mist are also nearing the end of the flowers, but their seedheads are just as pretty and decorative and provide great foliage. The same will go for the poppies once they are finished flowering, as you will see. 

This is the bunch on Saturday.

On Sunday one of the poppies had opened fully.

Today, Monday, the same poppy was obviously way past its best, like all the Love-in-a-mist.

So I gave the bunch a bit of a shake and removed the black petals. I adjusted the stems a bit and you'd never be able to tell. Apart from the evidence on the table of course, but that's only in the picture for illustrative purposes!

 

Almost black ... I think

I've picked my first bunch of sweet peas and they smell gorgeous! I sowed more than ten varieties this spring, thinking that this would help me find my ultimate favourite sweet pea. 

It's great to make plans and it all seemed to work out as planned. Most of the seeds germinated, most of the plants survived the planting out stage, but I hadn't counted on all the labels fading! Obviously because I didn't use a permanent marker!! So this summer is going to be a "guess the variety" rather than a proper analysis of which one has the best fragrance, produces most blooms on the longest stems. In addition to using a proper marker next year, I think I should also sow more of the same variety and less varieties in total, as as it is now quite a mixed bunch. But a lovely one nevertheless. I think that the dark ones in the middle/right is "Almost Black", which is currently at the top of the list as it has produced most blooms! 

Another scented favourite of mine are the sweet williams. The current blooms are coming to an end and in order to encourage a new set of blooms, I have been cutting them this last week. Most of them I have given away, but this vase is now on the bar. 

In the vase are also some "Black Ball" cornflowers, an unnamed very scented white carnation and rose "Queen of Sweden". The latter usually has a vase life of about five days. It has a very light fragrance,  but it makes up for that by being sterile and not setting any seed. This means that if you forget to take out a faded bloom, the plant won't punish you by stopping to produce any flowers. For this reason this rose works really well if you consider having a rose hedge. As for a cut flower I find that you need to take out the side flowers that develop like side shoots next to the main bloom. You want the plant to put its energy into making single stemmed flowers, like the one pictured. 

I also ended up with a few odd flowers. Last year I bought a few rose bushes called Black Baccara, which is a highly acclaimed rose by florists, used a lot in wedding bouquets. It seems to do okay in the garden, not marvelous. I guess that in fully controlled greenhouses it will indeed produce those signature black buds. I got one stem of four bushes today, together with another flowering stem, also the only one of alstroemeria "Indian Summer". I'm sure that next year the plants will be bigger with more blooms! For now I just have to satisfy myself with this little vase.

  

The blue theme

I am still contemplating if I should go to the allotment or not. I really need to net my cherry tree. I've partly built a cage around it and with a net I want to create a birdproof "shutter" which I can open to pick the cherries when ripe and juicy. The other urgent job is planting out all courgettes, squashes and pumpkins which means that the last of the horse manure needs to be forked in the ground before I can do so. 

It is past 8pm already, so if I just keep on writing there will be no point in going anymore. Tomorrow is another day and yesterday evening I left the allotment so late that I could hardly see where I was going! And I have been there today already to pick flowers (after I picked the first ones at home). So I've decided that I have paid my dues for today. Besides it's already closer to sunset now. 

This week I tried to use blue flowers in my bouquets. Surprisingly blue is a difficult colour for flowers. There is an abundance of red, pink, orange, yellow and white in the garden, but most blues tend to be more purplish-blue. Flowers that can be deep blue are cornflowers and delphinium. As I have a few delphinium spikes in the garden, I decided I could miss one. I picked it along with some cornflowers and popped it straight in a vase with water as you want absolutely minimize the time that cutflowers are without water. I then looked at it, and decided that this really was a case of "more is less".  I got another vase out and presto!

I really liked the bouquet last week with the bellflowers (Campanula Persicifolia). I have had these on the allotment for a few years, but never thought about picking them. Today I combined them with feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), which is a pretty plant that I love for it's history as a medical herb, its fine white daisy like flowers and its ability to selfseed. What more can one ask of a plant? I also added some stasha daisies and Golden Celebration roses.  

Other blue flowers are Love-in-the-Mist (Nigella) out of which I made a small posy. 

I am also very excited that the first of the sweet peas are flowering, so I combined those with some clary sage, making another posy for the table which proves the point about more flowers being purplish-blue.

With regards to last week's bunches, the peonies lasted about five days and were absolutely superb. When rain was predicted a few days ago I went out to cut any remaining blooms which are now gracing the living room being as fragrant as they are gorgeous! Excuse me, I just need to go and indulge myself in their scent. 

  

There is a bat flying through the garden while writing this blog. He circles at great speed -faster than any bird- around the apple tree, catching insects in his flight. A bat in flight is not easy to see. You can hardly distinguish the shape of the animal as they go so fast, but if you do spot it, it is mesmerising. 

Only a hour or so ago I finished my flowers for this week, under the same apple tree which the bat is now locating using his sonar. I accidentally seem to have moved my flowerday from Friday to Sunday. This time that was because I was on the couch with a gastroenteritis-type illness which at the moment is doing its rounds in the family. But enough about that. I hope next week to pick and arrange flowers again on Friday. 

From last week's roses I still have two left, the orange Fellowship. Tess d'Urberville (red) lasted until today. The pink roses, Queen of Sweden, about five days and the yellow ones, Golden Celebration, only three days. Maybe if I had recut them and seared them in boiling water, they would have lasted longer, but frankly, I was too ill to do so. 

The other flowers that I have left are pictured below. It's basically the same bunch minus the roses.

The peonies in the front garden have finally started to flower. I think the variety is Peony 'Monsieur Jules Elie’, but am not 100% sure. Since they are under scaffolding due to building work, I have no hesitation to pick a few for the vase. Love-in-the-mist (nigella) is also flowering abundantly both in the garden and on the allotment. I just let them selfseed, so they have crossed and are now a mix of white, blue and anything in between, including a few pink ones. I love intrigacy of nigella as well of course the ease by which they self-seed!

Sweet Williams are also flowering and so is my favourite cornflower (Centaurea cyanus): black ball. The list still goes on: carnations, pink and white ones still in bud. A blue Campanula Persicifolia, stasha daisies, some snapdragons and of course roses and Euphorbia oblongata. The latter are all from the allotment where the cut flower patch is covered with blooms. This is how today's catch looks on the garden table prior to arranging in bouquets, with the two vases left over from last week on the left.

So after a half hour or so arranging, including getting some rosemary for foliage, I had four bouquets. As having six vases in the house is kind of ridiculous, I gave two away to wonderful neighbours. I've kept the peonies of course, but I'll let you guess which other one I kept and which ones I gave away.