3 Seeds to Sow in April and May for Summer Cut Flowers
Would you love an abundance of cut flowers to fill your vases through to late Summer and into Autumn?
Have you always imagined yourself in a floaty dress, gathering bunches of sweetpeas and cosmos to place in a jug on the kitchen table?
Are you dipping your toe into the world of cut flower gardening and you’d like some home grown flowers to bring you joy over Summer?
This blog post shows you the seed varieties you can sow now that will bring you lots of flower arranging fun in a few months time.
For vases filled with your own home grown cut flowers, there are 3 main seed categories to sow now to give you different shapes and sizes in your luxurious vase arrangements in Summer.
If you've got a window box, or space for a few pots by the front door, then choosing 1 or 2 varieties from each of the 3 categories below will give you so much interest, shape and texture in a vase.
1. Focal Flowers
They're bold, impactful and give you the largest concentrated dose of colour in your vase arrangement. Focal flowers add rhythm through your design and act as the stepping stones that draw your eyes across your arrangement. To grow focal flowers in your garden, seed varieties to choose from include:
Cosmos
Strawflowers
Sunflowers
Scabiosa
Calendula
Poppies
2. Filler Flowers
The name filler sounds like these flowers are a second thought but these are the flowers that will make your vase arrangement look more generously filled. They can be fluffy and cloudlike, bringing a softness to your flower arrangements. Place them in between the focal flowers to fill any gaps and blur the lines of the more dramatic and bold focal flowers. Seeds to plant now for filler flowers in Summer include:
Camomile
Nasturtiums
Orlaya
Erigeron
Echinops thistle
3. Long Flowers
This long flowers category really elongates and draws out your design. These bring colour and shape up and out of the vase design to give elegance and length to the flowers. Here we want spire shaped or pointed flowers and I’ve listed some of these below:
Snapdragons
Delphinium
Sweetpeas
Phlox
When you’re planting your seeds out, your seed packets should show you the instructions to follow.
Harvesting your flowers for the vase is such an exciting and wholesome feeling and many flower varieties are cut and come again so cutting encourages more flower growth. Make sure to leave some flowers for bees and other pollinators when you’re taking cut flowers from your garden.
Many of these flower varieties are annuals so they grow, flower and die all in one year. But that doesn’t really mean it’s the last we see of them… Once the flowers have gone over as we near Autumn and the seed heads are showing and beginning to dry, you can collect seed in an envelope to use and sow again for more flower growth the next year.
The flowers in the lists above can be sown around about April and May in the UK and should grow to bring you flowers through Summer and beyond. Hope you have fun choosing from the 3 categories above and adding colour and shape to your garden and vases!
Begin your flower arranging journey here
a helpful guide to get you started with your new floristry hobby today. It also includes mistakes to avoid and a list of tools to get you on the path to gorgeous vase arranging.