Sophie Leathart: Growing plants for cutting.

After an earlier career, Sophie retrained as a horticulturalist and received accreditation in 2015, fortunately – in the present context – finding herself working for a client who wanted a garden specifically for cut flowers. Sophie was also a freelance florist and so this fitted with both her interests and experience. She began with a brief excursion into the origins of the flowers we typically use. A lot of monasteries had walled gardens used for herbs and suchlike (Canterbury Cathedral still has one) and people would gather flowers from hedgerows, going on to cultivate the flowers we see around us today. Medieval pictures show examples of recognisable flowers being used.

Powered transport, initially railways, and the use of coal changed everything. For the first time, it was possible to range beyond the home area, and for distant produce to be brought in over much longer distances while still fresh. As a child, Sophie knew a woman, and former ‘land girl’ in the Second World War, who herself remembered picking bunches of primroses and putting them on the train to London for sale. Violets were also sold and bought in this way but are now quite rare. In 1949, the value of the market for flowers was £49m and they were mostly grown in Britain; now, we spend over £1bn on flowers, the majority imported from abroad, e.g. from East Africa. 

Large houses also had walled gardens, for growing food, but typically an area would be set aside for cut flowers and these could, like the primroses and violets, be sent to the owners’ town houses. There also arose a fashion for flower arranging in Victorian times, parallel with the upsurge in plant hunting expeditions: the plant hunters brought home previously unknown species and varieties so that now, some 70% of the flowering plants grown in Britain originate abroad. Knowing a plant’s origins can be helpful in determining its favoured growing conditions. 

Cutting gardens are now increasing in popularity once again. Things you need to think about when setting one up include Position: in what direction does it face, how much is in shade or sun? Water supply, for times when there is a drought. What to grow: flowers that are not as easy to find as the ones in the supermarket are best; and even those varieties might not be the right colour, for instance. Sophie gave as a specific example Lupins: you do not typically see these in shops or florists. Cut them when the first florets emerge, and watch out for the lupin aphid. They will repeat flower in September if cut before the seed pods set. 

To create an arrangement, keep in mind the four Fs: Feature flowers, fillers, foliage and fragrance.

Feature flowers: this is a truncated list, since Sophie gave a huge range of examples. With roses, cut them when they are one-third to a half open, in the early morning, while they are fully hydrated, put them straight in water and keep them in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. This will maximise their vase life. Peonies shed their petals very readily; a new plant should not be used for cutting for two or three years. When ready, cut when the buds are soft, and don’t take too much foliage. Delphiniums, like lupins, should be cut when the first florets appear. Their hollow stems can be turned upside down and filled with water then put in the vase, and the should be kept away from ripening fruit, as the gas given off by it shortens their vase life! The best hydrangeas are those that appear on this year’s growth and should be picked when fully out; seal the stems with hot water. Dahlias are available in huge varieties; doubles are best for cutting as they last longer than the single kind. Gladioli can be grown in succession: they go from planting to flowering in 90 days. Sunflowers: the smaller ones that grow out of side shoots are the best size. Amaranthus, or love-lies-bleeding, can be dried and used into the winter. Antirrhinums (snapdragons) should be treated like annuals if used as cut flowers: discard there plants once the flowers have been taken. Sweet peas grow well as cordons: take off all side shoots and runs them along canes. They are particularly good for their scent, of course.

She went on to show us how the other two Fs, fillers and foliage, could be used to complement the arrangement. Wild carrot was one filler variety, and she also uses eryngiums, achilleas and honesty (for their seeds as well as their flowers). Herbs can be used to add fragrance. She rounded off her talk by reminding us to take a record of the seeds we use, their source and the results we get. But she was not yet done: following this grand tour of plant varieties, Sophie impressed us all by compiling a glorious arrangement using examples that she had brought along, all the while giving us yet more information, in a virtuoso display of multitasking. 

Ken Manktelow