Why grow flowers in the garden for cutting

A. There are lots of good reasons. Firstly, you get the benefits of the blooms in the garden before you cut them, so you get the best of both worlds.

�

Secondly buying cut flowers from the florist can be an expensive business and the choice is often limited. By growing your own, often from seed, you stand to save a lot of money and can pick and chose the flowers you want.

�

A. According to the Flowers and Plants Association, the nation's favourite cut flowers are the fragrant lilies�such as Lilium regale (Christmas lily), Zantedeschia (Arum lily) and Lilium longiflorum (the Easter lily). Because of their heady fragrance they are associated with luxury, especially when you get the bill from the florists. However, like so many excellent flowers from the house they are relatively easy to grow in the garden and flower from early to late summer.

�

A. Generally speaking white blooms have the strongest scent. As well as the lilies there are peonies, sweet peas, freesias, stocks, nicotiana, gardenias and, of course, roses, among many others.

�

When growing from seed it is often a good idea to try and get the older or vintage varieties that are increasingly being revived by the seed houses. They often seem to have far more scent than the more modern hybrids that have been bred to either last longer or for stronger colours, often at the expense of fragrance.

�

A. The recent emphasis has moved away from the standard vase of one or two varieties and towards a more naturalistic look with a broader framework.

�

Foliage has become increasingly popular, with the use of things like lavender and rosemary to give displays a green backbone while providing some fragrance. Using ferns is fashionable as is using whole branches of things like winter flowering witch hazel, forsythia and ivy, or anything with a curious or eye-catching shape.

�