The best flowers to grow for cutting

If you love cut flowers, you could be sowing seeds now for a riot of colour in your home later on in the year.

But what might you choose? How much time and space do you have and how long are the blooms likely to last? You may find that while favourites like peonies are beautiful, they won’t flower for long in the garden, as opposed to cosmos and dahlias, for instance.

Or you might be happy picking fragrant sweet peas all summer for heady but short-lived indoor flower displays which you’ll need to replace regularly.

There are so many plants, it’s difficult to know where to start, but award-winning broadcaster, author and cook Sarah Raven, who runs a gardening mail-order business and holds courses and workshops at her home and garden in Perch Hill, East Sussex, has whittled down some prime candidates.

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“On the whole, go for annuals because they give you 10 times the productivity,” she suggests. “And go for cut-and-come again annuals, particularly in a smaller garden.”

What about combinations?

“I would go for two or three foliage and three flowers for a solid display,” says Raven, whose latest book, A Year Of Cut Flowers, offers a wealth of ideas and advice on flowers to grow for cutting and how to arrange them.

Here she lists five of her favourites.

1. Euphorbia oblongata

“People do worry about euphorbias because you have to pick them with gloves on, but it’s like the perfect plateau-former, which means that you can slot things in.

“It’s almost like organic oasis because it just holds everything else in place and is incredibly easy to grow. It’s a short-lived perennial which flowers about nine months of the year if you keep picking it.”

2. Salvia viridis (blue-flowered)

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“This is very long-flowering, from May until September. It self-seeds but not too much, with beautiful blue bracts which are very long-lasting in a vase. It’s a perfect spike. So the euphorbia is a plateau-former for the salvia,” she says.

3. Snapdragon (antirrhinum)

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“My favourite is ‘Liberty Crimson’ which is extremely long-flowering, with a great vase life. It’s very easy to grow and very healthy,” she says.

Snapdragons are ideal for planting in sunny and partially shaded borders, or in pots and containers.

4. Zinnia

“I’d go for ‘Queeny Red Lime’, which goes from a lovely lime to a muted pink,” she suggests.

Sow zinnias under cover in modules or gutter pipes in April, planting them out in late May, or direct-sow in the garden from late May, when the soil has warmed up, she suggests, as they hate cold nights. They flower between July and October.

Zinnias prefer dry, Mediterranean conditions, so ideally grow them in a sunny, open spot which has good drainage. They will also do well in pots and are loved by pollinators.

5. Cosmos

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Raven’s favourite is Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Rubenza’, a dark, rich and shorter variety which is easy to grow, very prolific and long-flowering. If you position it in a sheltered spot, it may not need staking, she advises.

“They give you the highest square foot productivity of any cut flower,” she enthuses, meaning more blooms for the space allotted than any other.

Sow seeds undercover in March or April in modules, or directly into the ground from May. You’ll need to stake taller varieties (anything over around 2ft/60cm) to stop them being blown over in the wind and once they are flowering you’ll need to deadhead them regularly to promote further flowers, she advises.

How to cut garden flowers

“Always pick into a bucket rather than a basket, so they’re cut straight into water, and strip two thirds of the leaves into a second bucket which can go straight on to the compost heap,” she advises.

Never cut the stems to the ground, she adds.

“Work out what vase you are going to put them in and then cut to that length. You can cut deep into the plant but always cut above a pair of leaves so you then get auxiliary bud formation, so the flowers are replaced very quickly.

“With all the plants that I’ve mentioned, as long as you do that they will grow back again. They are all cut-and-come-again.”

Euphorbia will be the slowest to grow back, she observes, so if you are growing in a container you might want to swap it for a cerinthe (honeywort) which is more prolific, she suggests.

Best time to cut

Cut your flowers first thing in the morning or last thing at night because the plants photosynthesise and transpire through the day, becoming water-depleted, particularly on a hot day when the cells will go quite floppy.

“As it cools down into the evening they also get back into a more positive water balance – but the best time to cut is first thing in the morning.”

How to make them last in a vase

“When you bring them in and they’ve been in water, sear the stem end in boiling water for about 10 seconds, depending on the texture of the stem.

“If the stem is woody, like a rose or shrub, give it 20 seconds. If it’s really soft, like a bluebell, give it five seconds. If it’s average, give it 10 seconds. Put 10% of the stem end into boiling water and then straight into cold after that timeframe,” she advises.

You can put things in the water to reduce bacterial reproduction, like an acidifying agent such as clear vinegar, Raven suggests.

“Change the water every two to three days and cut the stems again, so you don’t get that slime forming and re-apply the vinegar,” she says.

Creating a display

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Go for an uneven number of the same bloom, so, say five or seven cosmos, followed by an uneven number of the other flowers, she suggests.

“When I’m making a picking list, I would always do odd numbers. Flowers should be between two and three times the height of the vase for a more natural look,” she says.

A Year Of Cut Flowers by Sarah Raven is published in hardback by Bloomsbury, priced £30. Photographs by Jonathan Buckley. Available now