Grow Your Own Magazine

I can't grow any spectacular flowers for cutting, so most of my cut flowers come from any hardy plant that will survive. My vases around the house tend to look as though they have a large collection of wild flowers in them. This is the usual at this time of the year:



Shrub Honeysuckle, white daisies, alchemilla mollis, Shetland Blue Bonnets (geranium) and ragged cornflower.

It would be really interesting to know what you all grow for cutting.

What a beautiful bouquet, Jennie!

Speaking with my zero level knowledge, I still bet that with your greenhouse you have lots of flowers that you could grow.... my mum grows daylilies in a pot which you could grow in the polytunnel, and won't chrysanths flourish for you........ Where's NTG when you need him??

Having only just cottoned on to growing veg, I'm not geared up for flowers at all this year, but in an effort to shake off my 'if you can't eat it, I'm not growing it' attitude, I've just bought some cut price sunflower seeds which I would have direct sown this evening if it had been dry, and some sweetpeas which will have to wait until next year, I think!

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Tues 02/09/2008......beans and beans and beans......

I've been cutting this...don't know what it is, I never planted it! Someone told me Roman or German chamomile, but I don't think so. Looks like a small-flowered Chrysanth, smells horrible.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

just found some more pix of my cutting flowers: black cornflower, opium poppy (actually that doesn't cut), sweet william, calendula, white foxgloves. All of them self-seeded every year

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Its Feverfew Two Sheds !

It is related to the chrysanthemum. Good for migraine sufferers....stick a few leaves in sandwich each day and it's claimed to knock back even the worst migraines!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I don't have a pic but currently in a vase I have Sweet Peas (from the lottie), scented roses, calendula and pink carnations from my front garden. I LOVE scented flowers and I'm currently working my way through the scented roses stocked at Focus, get another every month or so! Also got candytuft doing well and earmarked for the next cutting.

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I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

http://hollandsroadparadise.blogspot.com
updated 14 May 2008

love your vase jennie,
i got some sent from work, roses and rosemary quite pretty by my bed.
otherwise its roses, (not my favorites but we have 3 rose bushes in the garden)combined with whatever i can find.

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Yo an' Bob
Walk lightly on the earth
take only what you need
give all you can
and your produce will be bountifull

Lovely arrangement in the vase Jennie.
At this time my cut flowers are a mixture of roses and philadelphus.
Will post a pic.

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Thanks for your lovely comments - really interested in hearing what others grow.

My sweet peas are only about four inches high at the moment (the plants not the flowers!) and I don't have much luck with roses other than Rosa Rugos which are lovely in teh garden but don't cut well. And Red Hot Pokers don't look too good in a vase!

Two Sheds - can you cut floxgloves for putting in a vase?

Roses, Sweet William, Carnations and Pinks and Dahlias, which are coming into flower now. Also any greenery thats in the garden to fill the whole arrangement out. I have lots of scented Lilys but can't bring myself to cut them.

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And when you're back stops aching,
And you're hands begin to harden.
You will find yourself a partner,
In the glory of the garden.

Rudyard Kipling.

Looks like double feverfew Two Sheds. It does smell vile but looks lovely - I put it with alchemilla and a bit of dark purple toadflax for a lovely fresh looking bunch. It's supposed to be good for headaches - curing them that it - and people sometimes put a leaf on a sandwich. As the name suggests, it's supposed to get rid of a fever. Never eaten it though, I have to say.

Whoops - got further down and realised Snadger has told you all this (and more succinctly!)

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It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 2nd 2008

Love your vase Jennie. I just about manage roses (love the scent), sweet peas, and some huge purple lavendar that I inherited and looks good with my white rose! I did have lupins but they're just about over now, as is my mock orange.

Lovely flowers Jennie! My sweet peas are just starting to flower down on the lottie - I'm aiming to call first thing in a morning so I can cut some and put them in my vase at work! The way the weather is going, it's going to be next week before they start blooming properly! Bernie

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

At this time I cut mostly roses for the vase.
The very pale ones we call Aunt Marion - it came from my mother in laws Aunt.
The darker pink one is Zepherin Drouhin - grows on a north facing wall where it never sees the sun.
The peachy one - not shown to its best advantage here - is Buff Beauty. A truly gorgeous rose.
My best rose - Morning Jewel - did its best in May, and wouldn't show it at less than its best. But truly spectacular at its best. It will come again.
And fill my vases.

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Lovely flowers everyone!

I don't have any pictures right now but I have some sweet peas in my flower vase. I'm not really a flower guy, I much prefer my veg!

Don't know about the others but I bet the Zepherine fills the room with a wonderful scent

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

This week's inhabitants of the Vase of Delights (floral equivalent of Smug Trug!) are alchemilla, ox-eye daisy, feverfew, greater burnet, purple toadflax, a few masterwort and a big umbellifer which is actually a carrot - snipped from under the bird feeder! A little of what you fancy ...!

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__________________
It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 2nd 2008

Thank you for sharing your lovely flowers Alice and Flummery - they have brightened up my day! Bernie

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

You're right Snadger, beautifully scented. The Buff Beauty smells gorgeous too. It's a big shrub and the scent fills the garden when the air is still. They have all spent their lives standing in the rain this year with no significant damage to the flowers so good weather resistance too.
Nice arrangement Flummery. Thank you. I think flowers from the garden look so much more interesting than flowers from the florist which tend to be always the same things.
Anybody else want to let us see what's in their vase ?

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

I prefer my flowers in the garden as they last so much longer and whilst I like frest flowers I always think they look really sad when they die! Added to this, OH has really bad hayfever so we don't have flowers much. Mind you, I try to put attractive plants near the kitchen window so that I can see them in the garden when I'm doing the washing up.

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Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

I like a few garden flowers in the house - many tend to put fresh growth out if you pick so they keep coming. I really don't like to buy cut flowers because many are flown in or grown here in heated glass houses and I resent the carbon footprint they have. My Ma, who I think deliberately misunderstands me, always comes in and says 'I thought you didn't like cut flowers!' She bought me an absolutley ghastly pot plant the other week 'instead of cut flowers' which looks like the middle leaves have gone septic! I'm trying to kill it by not watering but it's a toughie!

Just realised my flowers are very like Jennie's - we grow the same stuff obviously!

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It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 2nd 2008

Sweet Peas, a really pretty variegated lamium and some kind of vetch (soft green divided leaves and small dark pink flowers) and then I have added the seed heads