The Cut Flower Podcast

Top Ten Tips for Starting Your Own Cutting Patch

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 113

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

🎙️ Welcome to the Show!
In this episode of the podcast, Roz Chandler shares her top ten tips for starting a thriving cutting patch, whether you're a beginner or a seasoned grower. Pulling insights from her book Seed to Vase, Roz explains how to grow beautiful, seasonally grown British blooms with practical strategies for maximizing your space, choosing the right flowers, and keeping your patch thriving year-round.

Episode Summary

A cutting patch isn’t just a garden—it’s a space dedicated to growing flowers for cutting and arranging. Whether you have a small urban plot or acres of land, Roz walks through the essential steps to creating a successful cutting patch. From soil preparation to succession planting, and even dealing with pests and wind damage, these ten tips will help you start growing with confidence.

If you’ve ever wanted to fill your home with fresh-cut flowers or even start a small flower business, this episode is packed with must-know advice!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ Size doesn’t matter—how to maximize space for your cutting patch
✅ The difference between annuals, perennials, and biennials and why it matters
✅ How to choose flowers you love for a rewarding growing experience
✅ The importance of soil quality and how to improve it
✅ Protecting your flowers from wind, pests, and environmental challenges
✅ How to keep flowers blooming with succession planting techniques
✅ Essential tools and supports to keep plants strong and healthy

Connect with Us!

🔔 Subscribe to the podcast for more expert gardening tips!
⭐ Leave a review if you enjoyed this episode, it helps others find the show!
💬 Join the conversation in the comments: What’s your favorite flower to grow?


[00:00:00] Roz Chandler: So today I'm going to be talking about the 10 tips to having your own cutting patch. I'm going to read, I feel like, , those people, jackanory, gosh I'm really showing my age now, where they sat in front of a, they sat in front of a log fire, didn't they, and read stories. I used to love it. Anyway, you could probably hear The log fire in the background and it is a January day.

[00:00:23] Roz Chandler: But I'm going to read the 10 top tips to having your own cutting patch, which is chapter three in the Seed to Vase book written by myself. We keep looking for a home, but we keep finding this pit. So I just thought if we look for this pit, we might find home. The cutting patch. You've probably gathered by now how passionate I am about growing, harvesting and arranging seasonally grown British blooms.

[00:00:52] Roz Chandler: I've heard a multitude of different reasons why someone has wanted to start their own flower patch and you've read some of these as we move through this book but in the words of Julie Andrews let's start at the very beginning. The question I am asked more often than anything else is where do I start?

[00:01:09] Roz Chandler: So I've compiled my top 10 tips to get you started. Number one, size doesn't matter. Starting out you'll need surprising little space for your cutting patch. It's not a garden, it's a patch dedicated to cutting, something totally different. It's an area you won't mind having bare patches when you pluck blooms from it.

[00:01:31] Roz Chandler: A great size to start with is a raised bed of about nine meters squared. If you can spare this size you'll have ample space for 15 sweet peas, 5 cosmos, 5 dahlias. Five sunflowers, a row of magnificent cornflowers, along with some roses and a handful of herbs such as mint and rosemary. If you have a little patch, be it in a corner of an apartment or something else, you can plan your cutting patch.

[00:01:57] Roz Chandler: If you have more space, you can grow more varieties. Think of it in lots of three meters by three meters. But remember it doesn't have to be square. A long patch is equally as useful. Number two. You don't need to speak Latin to do this. Wrapping your head around what's an annual, perennial or a biennial will take some time, but please don't worry.

[00:02:18] Roz Chandler: There's a lot of jargon used in flower growing, but you don't need to know it all. Here is a quick guide. Annuals are plants that grow for one season, and that is their lifespan. They are the most abundant crop and give instant satisfaction. At Fieldgate, 50 60 percent of our blooms are annuals. Perennials are plants like delphiniums that come back every year.

[00:02:41] Roz Chandler: The actual thing about perennials is they're meant to be two years or more. Biennials are just that. They pop up every other year. You grow perennials for reliability, shrubs for foliage. Bulbs for early spring colour, but you grow annuals for delight and sheer abundance. Number three, grow what you love.

[00:03:06] Roz Chandler: Above everything, it's important to grow what you love. Grow flowers that remind you of your childhood. Where you spend endless days outdoors. Grow the flowers that you've had in your wedding bouquet, or grow the flowers that fill you with love, and through poetry or literature. Some of my favourites are below.

[00:03:22] Roz Chandler: But you will find lots more in the garden chapter. Amimages. Those lace capped white flowers are delicate and beautiful in any arrangement. Cornflowers. Traditionally a mix of blues and whites. Cultivated variants come in blues, reds, whites, pinks and almost black. The black paw. Nigella. No cutting patch is complete without nigella.

[00:03:45] Roz Chandler: It's just so beautiful and natural. Scabius. Annual scabiuses are quick to germinate and easy to grow. Sweet Peas known for their beautiful fragrance. These are easy to grow and come in hundreds of varieties. Dahlias a must in every garden and they're just too many to choose from. Amaranthus, a stunning addition to any vase.

[00:04:08] Roz Chandler: They come in shades of greens and burgundies cosmos, known as the easiest cut flowers to grow. Cosmos is prolific and comes in many colours. Bring a shape to any vase or arrangement tulips. Here at grow up to 40 different varieties of tulips. The range of colours they grow is just spectacular.

[00:04:29] Roz Chandler: Adding some perennials to your borders to supplement your flower garden is also a really good idea. You won't go far wrong if you're adding salvias, lavender, peonies, verbena and veronicas. Initially, I'd recommend somewhere sheltered. The wind is a cut flower gardener's enemy. Building a wall is no use either as the wind will hit it, crash down and flatten all the hardiest of plants.

[00:04:54] Roz Chandler: Think about using trellis or hedging instead. Even better, use some foliage plants such as eucalyptus for verburnum and pittosporum as windbreakers and you'll be rewarded with endless foliage for your arrangement. Rabbits aren't always cute. At Fieldgate we suffer from intruding rabbits that have a taste for flowers.

[00:05:14] Roz Chandler: Don't get me wrong, we love rabbits, but I'm known to turn into Mr McGregor when Peter is munching at my dahlias. For a small plot, think about edging with chicken wire, but ensure that the bottom edge is placed beneath the ground. Number six, keep things turning round. Plants are rotated to avoid the build up of pests and diseases.

[00:05:33] Roz Chandler: This isn't such a worry if you're growing annuals. But once you have a bug and get into a bigger plot, rotating your growing space will be essential. Number 7. Make sure you have some support. Now this is more important than anything. At Fieldgate Flowers we use Harris Fencing. Yes, Mr Chandler owns a construction company and all sorts of supports are found in the yard.

[00:05:54] Roz Chandler: But when you're planting on a smaller scale, you'll need pea netting string and twine, and plenty of canes. Top tip, get the support in your plants before you think you need it. Number eight, get down and dirty. It's always a good idea to know what soil you're dealing with, so it's worth investing in a simple pH and moisture meter from eBay or a local garden centre.

[00:06:16] Roz Chandler: It will set you back less than five pounds. Remember, whatever soil you have, You'll need to add compost and nutrition to it. Annual plants grow from seed to cutting in about 12 weeks, but this takes a lot from the soil which needs to be replaced. Keep a space in your garden for compost. It's the best source of food for your garden.

[00:06:35] Roz Chandler: Number nine. Look after your plant babies. And this year you may not have the luxury of a greenhouse or a polytunnel, but don't let that put you off. A good warm windowsill will be a good start, as will a small cold frame. Always better to start small and build. Going big right from the start will be incredibly daunting.

[00:06:53] Roz Chandler: Number 10. A hair and a spade. A lot of seeds are sown directly into soil, taking things from seed to plant in about 12 weeks. So think about continually sowing and growing. Cornflowers, for instance, are sown every two weeks here, right through the season from April to July. But above everything please have fun and enjoy every minute.

[00:07:13] Roz Chandler: Thank you.