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Welcome to the Cut Flower Pods.
Hello, today we're going to talk about the top 20 perennials and we tend to forget these.
They take a really back seat weage at annuals and I think because we're so busy germinating
and putting seeds and getting them out, thinking about direct so that we forget the perennials
that we need.
But it is the mainstay of any garden patch and I would recommend these 20.
So I'd start off with one that I wouldn't be without.
Alkamila mollisque or ladies mantle.
I wouldn't be without it.
It's a foam of lime green colours that makes a light area addition to any floral composition.
Now, it's the sort of thing that you have in your, you know that one piece of item of
clothing that you've got in your wardrobe that goes away with everything.
That is this.
This is ladies mantle and I recommend that you have it in your cutting patch.
As soon as it starts to die off, it goes to sort of that mustardy yellow colour, it's
best to cut it back and new flowers will come.
Number two, astrantia.
This is the pin cushion flower with delicately pointed petals.
It's wonderful in anything in brighter work, in bunches, in arrangements.
It kind of looks like a bit like, I suppose it's a pin cushion.
So it looks like embroidery and I would really recommend you.
It's a very small flower, very delicate and very beautiful.
We grow it here in pinks and whites.
It's also exceptionally long lasting in vase, easy to grow, seeds itself and if it likes
your soil, that's it.
Bingo.
Our third is daisies.
Now you can grow a whole host of daisies and we grow quite a number of different varieties.
My favourite is the Chatsita daisies.
It's double and single and it's white and yellow.
These are smiley cheerful flowers, easy to grow and you can put them in a border in your
cutting patch.
They last again remarkably well.
They've got that sort of informal country house style and they go great in loose bunches.
We used them quite a lot in marquee weddings, brilliant in churches.
There's something about a smile.
Daisies make you smile.
I wouldn't be without them.
Scabias, the perennial type of scabias is great for bees and butterflies and are brilliant
for cutting and honestly they're great producer and they just come back year on year.
What it doesn't like is wet and it's not great in acid conditions.
We're lucky because we're on neutral soil here and it grows like wildfire.
Number four, Aquila.
We grow this in a number of different varieties but particularly like gold plate.
The strong Aquila has those striking flattened heads on stout, I suppose you'd call them
stout stems.
Yeah, it doesn't sound very nice but these are really lovely.
It suits really large arrangements and also the yellow is great.
It goes in real stark contrast against many of the other flowers.
So I recommend you grow Aquila.
Number five, I think, well yeah, number six, this is going quickly, croak cosmia, lucifer.
Now these are great and make a great cup flower.
It's great and tall and there aren't that many that are as tall as this.
Strong stems, branched flower heads, it's brilliant.
So it's best when other flowers are faded and you're left just with the seed heads, that's
also very beautiful.
So I recommend you have some of those in your garden.
Sedums.
Yeah, this comes later in the season and it's great for cutting from late summer onwards.
So just when everything else is dying off, you can have sedums.
They love being in water.
They're a bit short so they're not great in massive amount of flower arrangements but
I still recommend you have sedum.
We use it quite a lot in funeral work at a sort of late summer onwards.
Talking about time of year, the next one is hella balls.
Obviously, they flower in late winter when there's very little else in the garden.
Wait until the stamens have dropped from the center of the flower and they'll last longer
in a vase this way.
That's how I recommend you cut hella balls.
People always say that how do you condition hella balls?
They don't last very long.
Well, they do if you wait until the stamens have dropped.
Now obviously the next one is pianists.
Now we've done a lot of talk about pianists and I've even done a podcast on pianists.
So the one thing about pianists that really amazes me is that it lasts 50 to 75 years.
So it's a heritage plant.
Now it's not a great cutting flower in the first early years of its life and I would
recommend that you just get it established before you start cutting too much from it.
But a P&E can last between 50 and 75 years.
So the pianists I planted out for this year will outlive me and that is kind of odd and
puts everything back in perspective.
So the thing about a pianist you just need to be patient.
Plant a bare root in a really sunny spot.
They don't like lots and lots of water.
The biggest problem about pianists is getting the roots rotted.
So you water them when you put them in in the spring and sparingly water them actually
from then onwards.
They do not like lots of water.
And then one of my old favourites, Delphiniums.
I love it because it's tall, it's towering, it's stately, it's great in a vase.
Really really good in pedestal arrangements.
They like well-drained soil and plenty of feeding and they need to be staked because
of the pure size of them.
We grow delphiniums both in the tunnel and outside.
So I recommend that you have delphiniums.
One of my favourites is Flocks.
I think this is quite essential to be part of your cutting patch.
There are so many different ranges of colours.
I particularly like the peach varieties for wedding work.
They're an excellent cut flower.
They have the bonus of having a lovely scent.
And cut when the flowers are just fully open.
And again they like the sun, don't we all?
Next one is Penstamen.
These are excellent in your cutting patch.
They're long lasting flowers and they go from the summer right into the autumn.
They have bell-shaped flowers ranging in colour from white to dark red.
And they look amazing in a vase.
Now they don't like, particularly, or they will have full sun, but they'll have a bit
of shade.
So if you've got a bit of shade, penstamen will grow.
Another one of my favourites, and this one just adds texture and difference to any arrangement
is Equinops.
The globe thistle is stunning.
As far as I'm concerned it's stunning.
It's eye-catching.
It's a different texture to anything else.
This one wants to be grown in full sun or partial shade.
And cut down the plant after flowering to produce more blooms.
Again a really productive perennial.
Coming onto Babina.
Babina is invaluable.
I mean it adds height to anything.
It's easy to grow.
More difficult to germinate from seed.
But once you've got it going, it will carry on and will grow and it will keep some delivering
in your garden patch.
It likes moist but well-drained soil in full sun.
There's a couple here, dahlias and roses, of which I've done separate podcasts on.
So I'll leave those for now because they're big in their own right.
But you know, no cutting patch would be complete without dahlias and roses.
Another one is agapanthes and we grow agapanthes in blue because there are not many flowers
in blue and we always grow it in a container which is against anything else we do because
agapanthes likes to be restricted.
Cuisantanones, again a huge variety of these and I will do another podcast just on these.
Just so many wide variety of colours and forms that it deserves its own podcast.
Millennium, this is obviously flowers in yellow and orange and rusty brown, very, very beautiful
autumn colours.
I'm going to recommend you grow those.
The idea to get in your cutting patch is an idea to get lots of different textures, lots
of different colours and it all comes together.
And the last one, number 20, is Aquiligia, vagaris is the one we grow, granny's bonnets.
This comes in a wide range of colours, it's really delicate and adds that tiny little
flower to your perennials.
So as you can see there's a massive range of both colour, height, texture, style in all
of those and growing them all just makes an amazing cottage garden in a vase.
Good luck.
I look forward to next week's episode.
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Bye.
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