For about three years I have been working on what I can grow with cut flowers in mind. Each winter I browse through the seed catalogues looking for flowers that might lend themselves to cutting.
The grow tent was purchased last year in part to extend the cut flower growing season. I started it off again in January and will probably run it off and on for most of the year.
The grow tent provides me with more light earlier and later in the season to allow me to sow seeds early in conjunction with heated seed trays, a heated greenhouse and a polytunnel. I am in the process of building two further polytunnels.
I am also experimenting with planting cut flower bulbs in the heated greenhouse over the winter. I have had some lovely anemones this year and will be adding to these further when I place my bulb order later in the year. I am going to experiment further this year and early next year with successional sowing with the Anemones to hopefully give a weekly supply of them for cutting during the Spring and the Summer next year.
In December last year I also took delivery some bare root roses including some climbing and some floribunda varieties. These were in addition to my existing collection. The roses have only just started to flower the last week or so. I know some people’s roses have been in flower for a little longer. The plan is to keep cutting them each week and to keep on top of any dead heading to prolong the flowering of them for as long as I can.
I have also been trying to organise going on a flower arranging course run by a local college. I wanted to make sure I had a varied selection of my own cut flowers and foliage available to me to use for each week of the course, I have managed to tick that box. I also managed to clear my diary so I could be available for the course dates. Unfortunately COVID-19 Pandemic has put a stop on this plan for now at least. There is always later in the year or next year.
