A vase for every week of the year…

Cutting gardens are becoming ever popular and Sue Fisher gives us some advice on how to get started and the types of flowers we should look out for.

Local and seasonal produce is hugely popular around Devon, inspired by a long tradition of horticultural enterprises that flourished in the sheltered valleys and little fields of the South West. Along with fruit and vegetables, cut flowers are fast becoming a grow-your-own mainstay too, as gardeners rediscover the delights of having a ‘cutting patch’ to raid for the house without depriving borders of blooms. Any out of the way spot in sun, preferably sheltered from strong winds, can produce a steady supply of posies for the home. Even a few containers will do: I grow some of my cut flowers in old tyres, placed on root-infested ground next to a large hedge.

Starting a cutting garden needn’t take much cash either. Many of the best flowers for cutting are short lived ones that can be easily raised from seed. Hardy annuals like love in a mist, sweet pea, sunflower and straw flower tolerate a bit of frost and can be sown in autumn or early spring.  Half-hardy annuals such as cosmos, zinnia and tagetes are frost tender, needing sowing under cover in late winter to plant after the frosts. Biennials like sweet William and wallflower grow in one year to plant now and flower the next – and while it’s too late to sow now, there’ll be plenty of ready-grown young plants on sale. Perennials are easy-care and go on for years: again, raising your own from seed saves a heap of cash. Or, buy one good-sized plant now and divide in autumn or spring to create several more.

Give a corner to some foliage plants as well as flowers: both evergreen and deciduous leaves make excellent ‘fillers’ that can be used as wonderful contrasts to blooms. Choose vigorous shrubs like golden privet, eucalyptus, pittosporum and golden dogwood, pruning hard back every year or two in order to encourage vigorous, straight stems for harvesting. Have a variety of plants in your cutting garden and you should have something for a vase every week of the year.

Seasonal jobs

• Autumn is perfect for planting all types of hardy stock, hence is the ideal time to assess your garden to decide on changes to action over the next few months, so work is completed in time to enjoy the garden next year.
• Plant bulbs now, choosing staggered flowering times to enjoy masses of blooms from late winter to late spring. If it’s tricky to find space in borders or pots that are still full, plant in old plastic pots and transplant before flowering.
• If you have a polytunnel or unheated greenhouse, sow hardy annuals in modular trays. They’ll grow slowly over winter, ready to plant out in early spring for a burst of early summer colour.
• Also under cover, sow a range of salads for a good supply of leaves over winter, like mixed salad leaves, winter lettuce and Oriental greens. Watercress is an excellent perennial crop and surprisingly easy to grow in soil that is kept moist: buy a supermarket bag, root healthy shoots in water and then plant in wide, shallow containers.

Looking good now

Autumn leaves create a pageant of flaming colours to see off the season in style. Top trees for leaf colour include maples (Acer), amelanchier, birch, liquidamber and sorbus. One of my favourites is katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum) as the leaves smell like candyfloss as they turn colour.

Colourful fruits and berries can last for months – or just for weeks if the birds like them. Crab apple, pyracantha, sorbus and cotoneaster are popular plants that birds enjoy. In my garden, blackbirds are also feasting on Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria).

Late-blooming perennials are gloriously vivid: purple and pink Aster (Michaelmas daisy); yellow and orange Helenium, Rudbeckia and Helianthus; purple Liriope and red Monarda.

Sue Fisher is a garden designer and writer based on the Bere Peninsula. Tel 01822 841895. Email: suefisher@talktalk.net Website: www.suefishergardens.co