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Easy Cut Flowers from Seed

Posted on 22nd April 2015

Cut flowers bring the outdoors into your home and with them they add fragrance, colour and texture as well as style and  a pleasing touch of natural beauty.  There is nothing more rewarding than being able to go out into your own garden and harvest your own home grown cut flowers. Many trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials can be cut for indoor displays but there are also plenty of quick and easy annuals that you can grow from seed – and it is not too late to start.

Amaranthus caudatus  is probably best known a traditional bedding plant but this showy annual is also grown in many different countries as a spinach-like vegetable, the seeds are also harvested and used like millet and it is regaining popularity as a cut flower for a bit of drama in a display. The seeds can be sown now into in trays and need some bottom heat to germinate but once germinated they can be pricked out into modular trays and placed in a cooler environment to grow on for 4-6 weeks when they can be hardened off and planted out at 30 cm apart. They become top heavy when in flower so a short stake will help to support them.  They will flower from early summer and the flowers can be cut fresh for use in arrangements or dried for dried flower displays.

Amme majus is a member of the Apiaceae (carrot) family and can be grown from seed very easily. This plant develops a small tap root and is therefore best sown direct into the soil in late April and Early may for summer flowering. The sprays of white flowers make an attractive, natural fluffy filler for cut flower arrangements and the developing seed heads take on a purple hue and are also an interesting addition to arrangements.

Cosmos has a daisy type flower, often with rolled petals and is available in a range of colours from deep pinks through pastel shades to white. The ferny foliage is also useful in a natural looking arrangement and the plants can be grown easily from seed. They are best started in late March or Early April putting a small pinch of seeds into each cell of a modular tray and placed on a warm windowsill to germinate. They will not need pricking out or potting on but can be hardened off at the end of  May ready for planting out in a sunny spot in the garden. They can be cut from late July and the more they are cut the more new flower buds they will produce.

Sunflowers can be sown into pots from early April to get an early start but do best if they are later planted out into the soil, this helps to develop a sturdy stem. Dwarf varieties such as ‘Junior’,  ‘Firecracker’ and ‘Little Becka’ have a suitable length of stem for cut flowers and produce many flowers on the same plant.

 

Written by: Caroline Wright, Guest Contributor