Tom Massey's WaterAid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2024
14.05.2024 - 14:47 / houseandgarden.co.uk / Sarah Raven
Orange ‘Fire King’ wallflowers and reddish-purple ‘Slawa’, ‘Merlot’ and ‘Rem’s Favourite’ tulips in Sarah Raven's cutting garden.
For lots of us, being able to cut flowers for the mantlepiece or to take to a friend for dinner is a key motivation for having a garden at all. A simple posey of sweet peas, an outrageous bunch of dahlias or just a few sprigs of greenery for the Sunday lunch table are one of the greatest rewards of the garden. A dedicated cutting garden might feel like a Downton Abbey-style fantasy, but if you’re not blessed with a walled garden specifically to fill vases, there’s no need to panic. In a vase, a flower that may play second fiddle in the border becomes star of their own show. A constellation of bud vases scattered on a window sill with a single stem in each is the perfect way to really get to know the characters in your garden. Even a humble forget-me-not acquires star quality when upgraded to a vase.
However, if generous bunches are the goal, you might want to grow a few extras that can be dotted through borders or even in a dedicated bed ready for snipping on a Friday evening. Here are some valuable lessons to consider when growing flowers for the home.
There is no plant catalogue more alluring that a cut flower seed catalogue – a kaleidoscope of extremely tempting blooms which can easily lead you astray. Flower farmer and florist Georgie Newbery of Common Farm Flowers in Somerset recommends you design the mixtures you want before you start sowing – what flowers really put a spring in your step on a Monday morning? Which smell divine on your bedside table? And do they all work well together in a vase?
Florist and grower Milli Proust says start small and choose carefully, especially if you’re
Tom Massey's WaterAid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2024
A lilac bush can be a bit dull when not in bloom, but the larger forms can be livened up by sending a climber through them.
The English country garden, more specifically the cottage garden, is so intensely romantic and full of charm that even the most ardent minimalists would struggle to deny a soft spot for them. Blousy, abundant and floriferous, they’re a tangle of girlish colour, soft shapes and accidental magic. But underneath it all, they’re actually quite hard to pull off and often true labours of love.
The goal from a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show is to come away with your head full of ideas and inspiration. Sometimes the show gardens can feel unattainable – too esoteric, too wild or too zany for your own back garden. This year however there are plenty of clever, stylish and down-to-earth gardens that offer ideas for real gardens. Here are a few of the best.
Tom Stuart-Smith's National Garden Scheme Garden
A young multi-stemmed olive tree in Umberto Pasti's Moroccan garden
Joe and Laura Carey
For the last 19 years I have spent the third week in May at the Chelsea Flower show. It's one of those Great British institutions that just has to be experienced — a chance to see the country's best horticultural performers all in one space, to glean ideas, spot trends and talk to the people who make our gardens grow.
Drought-tolerant, laden with nectar, evergreen, long-flowering, and so pungent that it fills the garden with scent, lavender is deservedly popular. The late garden designer Rosemary Verey said, «You can never have too much of it in your garden». In its preferred conditions, of well-drained soil that is baked by the sun, it is easy to grow.
A city garden by Luciano Giubbilei, where an interesting mix of shapes and textures is provided by the foliage of a multi-stemmed Acer palmatum, a wisteria and a mound of Euphorbia mellifera.
During May, the charity Plantlife encourages people not to mow their lawns. As well as attracting and helping wildlife, it's an opportunity to enjoy the sight of flowers blooming in long grass. Observing what appears – from interesting wildflowers (orchids, perhaps) to wildlife (such as grasshoppers) – is fun and, obviously, No Mow saves a lot of time. However, going the whole hog isn't for everyone. Those with children who enjoy careering around the lawn and people who entertain in their gardens won't want to let all their grass grow long. Therefore, a smaller No Mow area is more appealing and something that can be kept up throughout the summer.
At the back of the house, Adirondack chairs are placed beside a border with a small standard wisteria, a box spiral and purple Iris ‘Art Deco’ set off by lime-green euphorbia. An unknown red rose on the wall is from Mark Rumary’s 1960s scheme.