Planning Your Own Cutting Garden
Before I started Fogbow Flowers I had been gardening off and on for many years and planting 1000s of natives to help our regenerating bush area. I didn’t know much about specialty cut flowers. Luckily these days the internet provides information on any subject, but this can sometimes be overwhelming - who to listen to? I don’t profess to be an expert but have tried to summarize information from reliable science-based sources.
Your first consideration is what you would like your vases of flowers to look like - shapes, varieties, colours - so much choice! Start with a few varieties and figure out what grows well for you - some are easier to grow than others. Don’t be overly ambitious - we all have failures, that’s how we learn, but with careful planning and fore-knowledge these can be minimized. What is a failure one year becoming a success another, and vice versa.
Lifting Dahlia tubers
A few hints to help:
Start small -A 1 x 3 m bed is fine. Growing involves time and effort - plant what you have time for. You can increase the size anytime. It is important not to be overwhelmed from the get-go.
Placement – Choose a position with more than 8 hours of sunlight per day. Place out of everyday sight - you are more likely to pick flowers that you can’t appreciate from your window!
Prepare the soil - this is extremely important as all your future flowers depend upon the nutrition they receive - the texture, draining ability, organic matter content, and microbial life of the soil. Any amendments depend upon your existing soil structure and nutritional profile. Any disturbance of the soil upsets its local ecosystem – unfortunately initially establishing a garden will inevitably disrupt this. Assess the texture of your soil and add amendments as required – eg: good quality compost, Gypsum, Lime, fertilizers in the form of fish/seaweed emulsions, etc. This is a huge and immensely important topic – I am writing a blog on this topic alone.
Irrigation -put some thought into this. Hours holding the hose can be no fun – OK, maybe with wine in hand on a warm evening is an exception. I use drip tapes -these provide water directly to the soil and can be controlled with timers (Another whole other topic).
Control weeds - weeds will become the bain of your life if you don’t keep on top of them. A good strategy is mulch to prevent weed seed germination, but it will always be an ongoing task. Mulch will also help retain moisture in the soil and temper extreme temperatures.
Timing - Follow the instructions from seed companies or seedling suppliers on when to plant and how often. Again, a Pandora’s Box of information. Some hardy annuals (Nigella, Strawflowers, Larkspur, …) are best planted in autumn to overwinter and flower in Spring. Others (Zinnia, Cosmos,...) cannot be planted until the soil warms up in late Spring. Plan for successions - some flowers only provide one stem (Stock, some Snapdragons) and need to be planted every few weeks to provide a supply over a longer period. Others (Scabious, Cornflowers, Perennials in particular) will repeat flower to provide blooms over a longer period.
Use some form of support - these plants can grow tall - especially special cut flower varieties. They need support to remain up-right. Stakes or netting can provide this - especially in windy (read Wellington) positions, or simply because they become top heavy.
Cut the stems low and often - this encourages new long flower stems from deep down to shoot. Research which stage to harvest - each flower has an ideal harvest window for the longest lasting blooms.
Most of the above points raise more questions than they answer - I am happy to answer any questions.
I will put together further information for more details on each of the above points and I may even be able to provide some materials and seedlings to start you off.
Recommended references for further information: (bear in mind to add 6 months to planting information for northern hemisphere sites, and consider different growing zones/conditions).
https://www.theseedcollection.com.au/flower
https://thegardenersworkshop.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqqB2XUC4j1nC5ccqFUzMk9cdDtSTqbGXP3Lr_9oVg533rLzQpd
https://www.floretflowers.com/
https://notillflowers.libsyn.com/
