Tag Archives | cut flowers

Dahlia Grow Along 2015

This time last year I introduced my first Grow Along with a real garden favourite  –  Sweet Peas.

Now is the perfect time to start a new one with the first flower I ever grew for cutting twenty years ago – the Dahlia.

Green and Gorgeous, an ethical flower company which grows, arranges and sells locally grown flowers.

Although dahlias were deeply unfashionable at the time I was working for a die-hard Dahlia lover called Maurice Fitzmaurice. A wonderful big bear of a man with a penchant for giant Dahlias. His passion (actually obsession) for them was kind of infectious and as his gardener I spent hours attending to their every need and learning the most labour-intensive ways to grow them, as he was a stickler for detail.

My treat was to pick a big bunch to take home where I would while away hours (as you can in your 20s) contemplating their almost impossible forms and colours. Sometimes I would wear them in my hair, which I think was pretty impressive considering their size.

Maurice’s favourite was ‘Hamari Girl’ (big, pink and blowsy – see above) and when he died I went and dug up the tuber from his garden (but don’t tell the new owners…). I propagated and grew this variety in my first year here at G&G.

Since then I have mainly downsized to small and medium types but expanded my repertoire to about 80 varieties which are constantly chopping and changing. I have also simplified my cultivation methods to save time but still get amazing results for cutting.

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Today I am going in to my dahlia store to select some favourites to be propagated for the season of 2015. I haven’t got room to take cuttings of them all so how do you choose a good variety for cutting?

Colour – a personal preference I know but as weddings are our main business my selection tends to follow trends.

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Habit – a close up picture of a flower in a catalogue might be enough to persuade you to buy, but it doesn’t tell you about it’s growth habit and whether it produces good stem length.

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Vase life – size and shape are the secret here, the majority of mine are small and miniature varieties in either decorative, ball or waterlily.

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Productivity – another attribute which is difficult to predict until you are actually growing them, dahlias vary enormously in how prolifically they flower.

Longevity – some tubers store more reliably than others, possibly because they put on good strong tuber growth so do not shrivel up or rot over winter.

If you do like to try before you buy I recommend visiting the Wisley trial grounds and a couple of Dahlia nurseries with show beds in August/September.

So what is my short list for propagation? – not all of these, way too long for my heat bench!

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My top ten is always changing but last year it was Cafe au Lait, Eternal Snow, Eveline, Acalpulco, Carolina Wagemans, Tiptoe, Porcelain, New Baby, Little Robert and Maldiva.

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In next week’s post I will talk about varieties in more detail and where to source them if you are starting from scratch. I will also take you through a pictorial guide on how to propagate from tubers in case you have some favourites in storage.

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First Flower Club – June

My first Flower Club was a cake-fuelled floral extravaganza! We had some sunshine too, but it was not too hot – perfect weather for wandering through the cutting beds picking and designing a bouquet.

A bit daunted at first, everyone came back with buckets to condition in our chiller before taking them home to practice later.  Each selection could not have been more different,  a unique expression of what is looking good in the garden right now.

 

After sampling the results of my latest bake – chocolate pecan nut brownies and lemon drizzle cake. I went to work demonstrating how to make a natural, sumptuous hand tie – this was my pick of the garden – Rose ‘Just Joey’, Dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’, Alstromeria ‘Elvira’, Astrantia, Campanula lactiflora, Scabious ‘Ping Pong’, Dill, Rosa glauca, Nigella seedpods and Eryngium planum.

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With a generous selection of flowers set out in my new smart buckets (previously picked and conditioned) it was now time for everyone to make some more decisions and make their way to the flower studio and in quiet concentration put together some beautiful hand ties.

 

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We finished with an aquapacking session and tissue lined bags were filled and at the ready for everyone’s artistry to be carried home.

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Here is what Linda Dixon said about the morning “I had a fabulous time on Sunday; it was fun, instructive and challenging – looking forward to the next Flower Club”.

On the subject of floristry I am gearing up for my floral demonstration at Hampton Court next week, I will be in the Roses and Floristry Marquee on Thursday 10th July at 5pm. My subject is ‘Natural Showstoppers’ which will be basically something big and wild without the use of florist’s foam.

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Sweet Pea Grow Along – Part 3

Your carefully sown seeds should be showing some signs of life by now. Remember to keep them cool and bright as they start to grow.

The next job is preparing the ground outside, probably not terribly appealing right now unless you are outside the UK!  If your ground is too wet to dig, a mulch of compost would be better than nothing at the moment. Sweet peas like a rich, moisture-retentive soil.

They prefer an open, sunny position,  so avoid anywhere that is in shade for more than a couple of hours a day.

I plant in long 25m rows so I can have an overwhelming quantity to harvest. If you are planning on something smaller, a teepee/wigmam is attractive (made from hazel or older bamboo canes). Sweet peas must be picked or dead headed to keep flowering. I find it hard to reach the flowers in the centre of a teepee, which can make this task a bit of a chore.

I also do not enjoy tying in, as it is far too labour intensive. I find bean netting offers enough support for sweet peas to do most of this bit themselves. It is cheap, quick to erect and creates a veritable wall of scent once the netting is clothed with Sweet Peas. Here is a picture of our indoor sweet peas at this time last year. Note the sunshine….

 

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Here’s how we prepare our rows. Ground is dug over (ideally in the autumn) with plenty of well rotted FYM. Stout 2.4m posts are banged in at intervals, approx. 3-4m apart. A hole is drilled through the top of each post, wire (electric fence wire) is threaded through and at the same time woven through the top of the netting and tied as taut as you can . Think of it like hanging a simple curtain,  with the bean netting secured to the post using a staple gun to stop any wafting about. Depending on the length of your rows, your end rows may need bracing with a post section notched in and dug into the ground.

 

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This picture was taken by Shannon Robinson last year, when we let the public pick their own. Our next installment will cover hardening off and planting.

Rachel Siegfried

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