The Cut Flower Podcast

Agony Aunt Roz: Answering Your Top Cut Flower Gardening Questions

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 99

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

Hi, I’m Roz Chandler, and welcome to another episode of the Cut Flower Podcast, Agony Aunt edition! Today, I’m excited to dive into your questions about growing cut flowers. Whether you’re just starting or have been at it for years, this episode is packed with tips and advice to help you flourish. From soil conditions to choosing the best flowers, we’re covering it all. Let’s get started!

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Roz tackles listener questions, offering expert advice to help improve your cut flower gardening. The first question comes from Kay, who wonders if soil type affects the color of dahlias. Roz explains how environmental factors, like soil and sunlight, can impact flower colors, and highlights how these can vary across different locations.

Next, Beth asks how to clear an overgrown allotment. Roz walks through the process of preparing your plot using the no-dig method and landscape fabric to manage weeds. She also shares tips on whether to plant in raised beds or directly into the soil.

For those starting their flower journey, Roz suggests beginner-friendly flowers such as zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers, perfect for easy maintenance and great yields. She also covers essential techniques like cutting flowers in the morning, proper conditioning for extended vase life, and pinching or disbudding flowers for longer stems.

Other questions include how to manage pests organically and choosing flowers that thrive in shady areas. Roz wraps up by offering tips on creating a seasonal planting schedule to maximize your garden's potential all year round.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Environmental Impact on Flower Color: Soil, sunlight, and climate can influence the color and vibrancy of your flowers.
  2. Allotment Preparation: Use no-dig gardening methods and landscape fabric to control weeds and prepare your garden efficiently.
  3. Great Starter Flowers: Zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers are excellent choices for beginners who want reliable, easy-to-grow cut flowers.
  4. Extend Vase Life: Harvest flowers early and properly condition stems for longer-lasting blooms in vases.
  5. Pinching for Better Stems: Removing side buds can help flowers produce longer stems for cutting.

Closing Message and Call to Action (CTA):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Cut Flower Podcast! I hope you found the answers helpful. If you have more questions, feel free to reach out at roz@fieldgateflowers.co.uk or visit cutflowercollective.co.uk. II look forward to answering more of your questions soon—keep them coming!


Agony Aunt Roz 11102024

[00:00:00] Roz Chandler: Hello and welcome to the Cut Flower Podcast edition of the Agony Aunt. Now what is this Agony Aunt I hear you say? And I've been doing a few episodes called the Agony Aunt. And it came about because I read about Dolly Alderton, who is in the back of the Style Magazine, which I believe is the Sunday Times.

[00:00:20] Roz Chandler: And she's an Agony Aunt for relationships. And I thought, wouldn't it be a lovely idea if I could be an Agony Aunt for the Cup Flower World? So it got me thinking. So I thought I'd do a few episodes called the Agony Aunt Ros Chamblain, see what you think of them and let me know. I'd love it if you could just send me an email, let me know what you think of them.

[00:00:40] Roz Chandler: My email is ros, R O Z at fieldgateflowers. co. uk. Do reach out to me and also, If you've got any questions, any cut flower questions, that will be great. I normally take the questions from our free Facebook groups or our memberships and also from the emails that people are sending in. So I'd really appreciate it if you had a chance to do that.

[00:01:03] Roz Chandler: So I received my first email from Kay Penley and she says, Hi Ros, I'm very much enjoying your Cut Flower Agony Aunt podcast. Thank you very much, Kay. This is my fourth year growing dahlias for cutting and what I'm noticing is that on heavy clay soil on top of blue lias limestone is that many of the colours of my dahlias are not what I'm expecting them to look like.

[00:01:29] Roz Chandler: They're usually more yellow than they're meant to be. This year it's been wide eyed jill and labyrinth in particular but other peaches like daisy jute are spot on. So my question is can soil type affect the colour of a dahlia or plant and do you know how this happens? Many thanks, Kay. This was an interesting one because I didn't know the answer.

[00:01:51] Roz Chandler: I thought that dahlia colour or depth of colour could be affected by sunlight, the amount of sunlight they get, because dahlias love sunlight. So I went on a research to find out the answer and I came across a blog written by Longfield Gardens, so if you want to look that up at longfieldgardens. com, and it says dahlias are unusually responsive to growing.

[00:02:13] Roz Chandler: In addition to their inherent genetic variability, dahlias also have a high degree of what scientists call plasticity. This means that more than most other types of plants, dahlias are acutely responsible, responsive to environmental conditions. Weather extremes can have a rapid and significant effect on their rate of growth.

[00:02:36] Roz Chandler: as well as on when they start blooming, the size of the flower and the total color production. Interestingly, cultivars can respond very differently to the same set of growing conditions and no wonder daily aphoribs are so active asking all the questions. Then she goes on to say that Dahlia Penhill Dark Monarch, the flower color, can be surprisingly variable depending on where the plants are growing.

[00:03:01] Roz Chandler: Tubers from the same grower can yield different results depending on where they're growing. The Dahlia Diva, for example, might lean towards red in Michigan and purple in Massachusetts. Penn Hill watermelon may look peachier in Oregon than it does in Ohio. Dahlias can also change color. While we count on both annuals and perennials to produce the same color flowers throughout the growing season, this is not always true with dahlias.

[00:03:29] Roz Chandler: As the season progresses, colors may intensify or take on a cooler or warmer cast. You may even see several color variations on the same plant at the same time. If you're up for the ride, growing dahlias can certainly be an adventure. So I think it's a lot to do with the soil actually, and I think it's growing conditions and the amount of light they actually get, and also inherent in its genetic makeup of each tuber.

[00:03:55] Roz Chandler: So in answer to your question, Kate, the answer is yes, they can be different shades. And obviously from researching, I was quite surprised. I hope that helps. I've got another one from Beth Nightingale that says, I've been loving the podcast. So thank you very much, Beth. I've just got an allotment, but it's completely covered with weeds, raspberries and other bits.

[00:04:16] Roz Chandler: How would you tackle this and getting it back to a clean slate for growing cut? Flowers. Oh, Beth, I have done just this with, I took over a sort of allotment to grow when I wanted to grow 30, 000 tulips. I took over this allotment, which was open to fields, was completely overgrown. Raspberry bushes, like you say, blackcurrant bushes, gooseberry bushes.

[00:04:39] Roz Chandler: A real mess and weeds. Awful. Now you don't say Beth whether you're in the UK, but let's assume you're in the UK now and we're going into mid October into late October. It's the ideal time to clear this. So all the raspberry bushes and things that are nettles and things need to be dug up and take them out.

[00:04:59] Roz Chandler: So get rid of all your big weeds, get, just take them out. Next thing, let everything die back naturally. Then you might want to consider, I don't know what size of plot you have, but you may want to consider no dig, which is a situation where you can put cardboard down, you don't attack the soil, and everything below the cardboard will die off naturally because it hasn't got any light.

[00:05:21] Roz Chandler: And then you can put compost and mulch on top of that. If it's a large area, now the problem with that is the cost of that and obviously getting the compost and mulch. You could consider raised beds, so clearing some areas and just using compost and mulch in the same way in raised beds, and you could also do no dig there.

[00:05:41] Roz Chandler: Ultimately, you could let it all just die back naturally, take out all the heavy weeds, and then if you can, I don't know whether you've got access to a mechanical way, of take off the top of it with all the weeds on the top. and therefore just go with what's underneath. Ideally at that stage you might want to put landscape fabric down and plant into landscape fabric in order to keep the weeds under control.

[00:06:06] Roz Chandler: So my recommendation if this is large areas, I would be using landscape fabric and growing through landscape fabric. So everything, over, I don't know, half an acre. Or even a quarter of an acre I would be doing landscape fabric on. If it's smaller and it's garden area I would consider doing raised beds.

[00:06:25] Roz Chandler: and doing the no dig method, because that might be easier. Or if it's a smaller method, or even into borders, you could use no dig. So I hope that's helped, Beth. If it hasn't, do come back to me, but it's doable. I want to say that all of our growing areas have been grassland beforehand. And it's a way, we have lifted grass off mechanically in order to get to the soil.

[00:06:49] Roz Chandler: But you do want to get rid of those weeds. So if you can go for no dig, you are much, Better off. So some more questions. Somebody has come to ask me, what are the easiest cut flowers to grow for beginners? Now this really depends whether you're going to do direct sow of seeds, so come next March or April in the UK, when it's all going to start to get a lot warmer, I would direct sow seeds into raised beds or borders in order to get easy cut flowers.

[00:07:17] Roz Chandler: Other ways of doing it is growing undercover, so in a greenhouse or in a polytunnel or on your window ledge. is getting seeds started off in March, so you're ready to put seedlings out as soon as the soil warms up. So there's two options there for easy peasy, either you're growing them undercover to get them seedlings and then you're going to put them out, or you're going to direct sow, or perhaps you're going to do a bit of both.

[00:07:40] Roz Chandler: So friendly beginner options are things like zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, sweet peas. They are all hardy, low maintenance, and you get lots of blooms from them. Cornflowers is another one. Calendula is another one. If you pop over to our website, thecutflowercollective. co. uk, there's a huge section called resources, and you can download all sorts of things, like the best cut flowers to grow, and I think that would really help.

[00:08:10] Roz Chandler: What are the easiest cut flowers to grow for beginners? That's a start, but if you want more resources, do pop over. How do I prevent my cut flowers from wilting too quickly? This is cutting and conditioning. I, we always on the farm harvest in the morning, and we, because they're obviously taking up water, and then they've had overnight, and they're very well hydrated, and we put those stems directly into water immediately.

[00:08:34] Roz Chandler: We take up all the leaves below the water line. Okay. That's the first thing you need to do. So it's when you harvest, your buckets need to be absolutely squeaky clean. So you have squeaky clean buckets, you put them straight into water. And there are exceptions in cutting and conditioning. Again, there's another resource on cutting and conditioning, but things like roses need to be seared.

[00:08:56] Roz Chandler: Searing is putting the end of a rose in boiling hot water for about 10 seconds and then transferring it into a bucket with cool water. What that will do is you'll see the air bubbles come out the bottom of the rose and that will allow the air to come out and the water to go in. So there's certain flowers that definitely need to be seared.

[00:09:16] Roz Chandler: We always seer echinacea, for instance, we seer roses, they tend to want to be seered. Other flowers which are hollow, things like delphiniums and lupins, have another way. You need to get the water to the top of the stem and tulips another way. So if you have a look at our cutting and conditioning resource, I hope that helps with you.

[00:09:37] Roz Chandler: Once you've got them inside, do change the water daily. You can make up your homemade solution of floral preservative, which is sugar, bleach and lemon juice, to keep them going further. What's the best way to extend the blooming season for cut flowers? The best way to do this is to practice successional planting.

[00:09:59] Roz Chandler: This is planting batches of seeds every few weeks. Deadhead spent booms regularly and provide adequate nutrition to keep the plants producing. And there are some plants that are really high producers. But we successionally sow our annuals when we're in our raised beds, so we might do two week, two or three week periods in between when we're direct sowing seeds into our raised beds for instance.

[00:10:26] Roz Chandler: So think about successional planting and you'll get a much longer season. Oh, always a tricky question. How often should I water my cut flower garden? I think more problems arise from over watering than they do from under watering. Always water deeply. It says less. Water deeply once or twice a week.

[00:10:48] Roz Chandler: rather than shallow frequent watering. So they like it if you give them a lot of water at once but not too often. Also of course adjust it on the weather conditions, ensuring the soil remains moist but not waterlogged. So if you dig a bit down just see how much water you've got below the surface.

[00:11:06] Roz Chandler: Another question, how do I protect my cut flowers from pests and diseases? Ooh, lots of us in the United Kingdom this year have had slugs on our dahlias like no tomorrow. And really that, a lot of that depends on what the climate is like in the winter. And for us, the slugs start mating on the 14th of February on Valentine's Day.

[00:11:25] Roz Chandler: So that's when we need to start treating the soil with things like nematodes. So different pests obviously have lots of different things like aphids have one thing. And then you can spray aphids with horticultural. So soap here on the farm. We use all biological methods and we're not using any herbicides or pesticides.

[00:11:43] Roz Chandler: If you want to pop over to Lady Bird Plant Care, if you're based in the uk, or even if you're not, go and have a look at her resources, which were amazing, and go and see all the different pests, diseases and how you can cope with them. Next question, which flowers grow best in my local climate? So it depends where you are, of course.

[00:12:01] Roz Chandler: You need to research native flowers and what everybody else is growing and they will be suited to your USDA hardness zone. All right. So your USDA hardness zone. So here in the UK, we don't really work on hardness zones, but I am in the Midlands and I'm on an 8B. If you go off to local nurseries, they're a great source of looking around and seeing what grows locally.

[00:12:26] Roz Chandler: That would be a really good one. And also what your neighbor's growing, what grows really well with you. Have a look, because different soil obviously in the UK has different conditions and therefore different things you can grow. So I would really research that one. What's the best time of year to start planting cut flowers?

[00:12:44] Roz Chandler: Okay. So we do two things. We do some autumn sowing of autumn seeds in our polytunnels, which will stay now in the polytunnels until next spring. So it gives us a head start. Things like Larkspur, we've done some lupins we've done some Achillea, and it just gives us a head start for next March. But there is nothing to say, you don't do anything until next March, February, end of February, beginning of March, and start to do some undercover.

[00:13:14] Roz Chandler: So on your windowsill or in your polytunnel or in your greenhouse, start to grow some seeds to get to seedlings that you can then transplant outside. You will be doing at that time of year, some bit of okey cokey to make sure you harden off those little seedlings before you put them outside and shock them.

[00:13:32] Roz Chandler: So lots of putting inside, outside. So if you do nothing except prepare your beds and get ready for next March, Then that's absolutely fine. How do I make a cut flower garden in a small space or container? Yes, lots and lots of annuals grow really well in containers. Choose the compact variety. So you've got a cosmos, which has got a compact variety.

[00:13:55] Roz Chandler: You've got dwarf zinnias. When you're going to grow dahlias, there's things like tangerine, orange are really good in containers. Use really deep containers for adequate root growth and consider vertical gardening with trellises for things like sweet peas. Should I use fertilizers and if so, which ones are best for cut flowers?

[00:14:15] Roz Chandler: Yes, always use a balanced 10 10 10 mix. Organic options such as compost or fish emulsion are great. for promoting healthy growth without chemicals. We're feeding, we have a feeding plan here on the farm, and we're feeding every two to three weeks. But again, do not overfeed because it will make the balance incorrect.

[00:14:36] Roz Chandler: So it's a bit like water, about not overwatering, don't overfeed. They're better with less feed. How do I get longer stems on my cut flowers? This is one that we're asked for a lot, and there are some varieties of plants that you need to pinch out in order to get longer stems. And pinching plants earlier in the season can encourage longer stems.

[00:14:58] Roz Chandler: And things like dahlias, we call it disbudding. So we take the two side shoots off a dahlia in order to get the one in the middle much taller. So lots of pricking out and lots of disbudding will make taller stems. It's about putting the energy into one stem rather than lots of stems. What is deadheading and why is it important?

[00:15:18] Roz Chandler: There's lots of deadheading going on the farm at the moment, and it's the process of removing spent flowers. They've gone over, and in order to get the plant to produce more blooms, you need to take them off. So the energy goes back into seed production and promotes continuous flowering. Alright, it prevents, sorry, it prevents the plant from going back into seed production.

[00:15:36] Roz Chandler: You don't want it to do that. You want it to promote flowering. So you take the spent off. You don't allow it to go to seed. So you'll see this really a lot with sweet peas. If you do not continually keep cutting sweet peas, which in effect is a bit of deadheading, then they will go to seed. And once they've gone to seed, that's it.

[00:15:54] Roz Chandler: They've gone to seed. They've done what they've wanted to do and won't produce any more flowers for you. How do I know when to harvest my flowers for Best Bar's Life? In the main, harvest when the buds are just beginning to open. For varieties like sunflowers or dahlias, do wait until they're fully open.

[00:16:13] Roz Chandler: And varieties like delphiniums. Foxgloves, lupins. You just need, look at the bottom. It flowers from the bottom of from the bottom of the flower, if you like. So it goes up as if it's flushing up to the top. So it starts to flower at the bottom. When it starts to flower, it's ready to cut and that's what you need to do.

[00:16:32] Roz Chandler: So that's when you harvest the best for best vase life. Can I grow cut flowers in the shade? This is always a very popular question. And the answer to that is while most cut flowers prefer full sun, certainly a lot of annuals prefer full sun, there are shade tolerant varieties. So things we grow lots of ferns in shade, we grow a strand here in shade, foxgloves, in shade.

[00:16:56] Roz Chandler: Echinacea in shade. Not in full shade. They do need four to six hours of indirect sunlight a day. But you can grow cut flowers in the shade. How do I store seeds properly for next year's planting? And the answer to that is away from the mice. We have massive amounts of problems now, even in our polytunnels, where the mice are going in and digging the seeds up that we've already planted.

[00:17:21] Roz Chandler: So you need to store seeds, any seeds that you collect, in a dry place in an airtight container. Label them with a date and variety. There's so many times in the past that I've known that's Nigella. I'll be fine. I'll put the label on later and I forget. And the next day I think, is it cornflour or is it Nigella?

[00:17:39] Roz Chandler: Avoid storing them in places that get too warm or damp, like garages or attics. It needs to be cool and airy. What are the most fragrant cut flowers to grow? Oh, I love this question. So they include roses, particularly the David Austin varieties. My favorite is the Queen of Sweden. Lavender, of course, sweet peas.

[00:18:00] Roz Chandler: We grow lots of sweet peas here. We grow the Spencer variety because they have long stems and we grow stocks. They all will add scent to your arrangement. We also add herbs to our arrangements as well, things like rosemary and all the mints and bay actually, but the rosemary and the mints give a gorgeous smell.

[00:18:21] Roz Chandler: How do I grow cut flowers without using harmful chemicals? The answer to that is that we don't at all. We are an organic farm, although not certified organic. We do not use any herbicides or pesticides. We use lots of compost. We do implement crop rotation. And we use natural pest deterrents. And we use a bio way of getting rid of our pests.

[00:18:45] Roz Chandler: Also mulching. Think very, mulching is amazing. Mulching helps retain moisture and suppress the weeds naturally. So if you mulch at this time of year, you'll be getting ready for next year. Put it around all your plants and you'd be amazed at the amount of moisture you retain and the amount of weeds you actually suppress.

[00:19:01] Roz Chandler: So you won't spend your next summer weeding. Should I cut, should I start my cut flowers from seeds or buy young plants? Okay, starting from seeds is definitely the most cost effective way. Gives you more variety but it does of course take more time and care. Buying young plants is faster and easier but it can be more expensive and nowhere near as much fun.

[00:19:23] Roz Chandler: So really start from seed. There are a few perennials that are difficult to grow from seeds. That I would definitely be, so Eustoma, for instance, is something we buy as plants. But I would say 95 percent of what we do is from seed. And it's much more fun. How do I overwinter certain flowers, like dahlias?

[00:19:45] Roz Chandler: At this time of year, everybody's asking about dahlias because we're coming up to frost season, when all the dahlias will die. So I say the first thing you've got to do with dahlias is let the frost come. Let it do its job. Let it turn everything black. It's a horrible sight when you first see it.

[00:20:02] Roz Chandler: And you go out and all your dahlias one day are black. Let them do that. Let it, for one or two weeks, there's nothing going to happen. And all the energy will go back into the tuber. Now you've got to decide whether you're going to lift the tuber, Or where they're going to leave the tuber in the ground.

[00:20:17] Roz Chandler: And that really depends on where you live and how hard your winters are. So we do not lift ours because our soil is really well drained. Dahlias do not like to swim, we say. So they do not like lots and lots of water. So be really conscious of where you are. If you are on clay, or you're in an area where it floods, or you're in an area where it's quite, there's a lot of water, or that you have a really harsh winter, then you really do need to lift them and store them over the winter.

[00:20:49] Roz Chandler: If you're in an area like us and you're fortunate we don't lift downs, but we will cover them very significantly. So we'll cover them, we first of all we'll cover them with mulch, we'll cover them with straw and then we'll put old carpets on the top and we'll make it really deep. Bear in mind that for every minus one degrees we're going to have, you need to go down an inch in soil before you hit the tuber.

[00:21:11] Roz Chandler: So that layer that you put on top is really, so say for instance, I My tuber is gone down and I've planted it two inches below the ground and I'm looking at minus five in my area. I need to put at least three inches on top to be able to cope with the minus five. So we have to go much higher than that.

[00:21:27] Roz Chandler: Just bear that in mind when you're thinking about leaving dahlias in the soil. So why are my flowers not blooming despite healthy foliage? I get asked this question a lot actually, where they've got, it happens a lot with cosmos and they say I've got lots of foliage but no flowers. And there's a number of different reasons for this.

[00:21:46] Roz Chandler: Mainly, it's due to insufficient sunlight. It can be down to overcrowding and possibly down to too much nitrogen in the soil, because nitrogen encourages leaf growth and it gets more leaves over flowers. So you might want to prune it or divide over overcrowded plants and that can help you. But generally, so I would say insufficient dark sunlight, yes.

[00:22:09] Roz Chandler: Overcrowding, yes. And too much nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen in the soil is possibly the main factor. And then your, one of the last questions I've got this week is, How can I create a sustainable cut flower garden with fewer inputs? So this is really about, obviously if you're going to go the no dig, the Charles Dowding way of gardening and he has obviously done a lot of research into that and has produced a lot of publications, a lot of books about no dig.

[00:22:35] Roz Chandler: That's amazing because you're not going to touch the soil. Another way is use drought tolerant plants. Install a rainwater collection system and incorporate organic practices like composting and using natural pest control. It's about minimizing use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and it just reduces your garden's ecological footprint and that's something I'm sure we'd all want to be doing, to enjoy our garden but in a sustainable way.

[00:23:03] Roz Chandler: So I hope that's helped. There's quite a lot of questions this week, I think in total 22. But I would love it if you would, first of all, go over to cutflowercollective. co. uk in the resource section, let me know what you think about that. Or you send me an email, let me know what you think about this podcast at rosroz at fieldgateflowers. co. uk. And I'd love to hear if you've got any questions for me. Many thanks.