Creating a Mini Cutting Garden

What is a mini cutting garden? Well, in this article I’m using the phrase to describe a way for you to grow annual flowers in your garden where the main reason for growing them is to cut and take into the house. They’ll also encourage bees, butterflies, and other pollinators into you’re your garden, which is brilliant.

There will be general advice in preparing the area and growing the flowers, and there are links below to other blogs which give further help on how to sow seeds, prepare soil, and which annual flowers might suit your soil, so do check those out.

But firstly, where in the garden will our cut flowers be grown?

Where in your garden to grow the cut flowers

Sun or shade?

Situating this in a sunny spot will make it easiest for you. And the term ‘sunny’ gives you a few options, not just full sun all day. Which would be too difficult for many of us to achieve, with smaller gardens surrounded by our own and neighbours trees.

As we are only considering annual flowers, or those treated as annuals, they will be growing during the months when the sun is highest in the sky. Finding somewhere in your garden that receives six hours of sunlight shouldn’t be a problem. Remember this is good sunlight, not necessarily direct sun on the flowers.

There are annual flowers which will grow happily in dappled shade, but designating a spot with reasonable sunlight gives you more options.

Size matters

Rather than presuming you have a 10’ x 8’ space to give over to your mini cutting garden, I want to consider other options. If we say that amount of garden will provide you with cut flowers late spring to autumn, how can we find that space in a garden 80’ x 20’?

Exactly how we do it will be down to your priorities and who / what else you have to share the garden with. For example, teenagers, bouncy dog, vegetable patch, home office. And of course, how your current garden and borders are laid out. Lets look at a few possible scenarios: –

There’s a space in the border where a conifer was taken down (and stump ground) that you haven’t done anything with yet.
Your borders are mainly filled with spring flowering shrubs and evergreen shrubs with gaps in between.
There are random empty spaces in the borders where you put pots of spring flowering bulbs.
You’re bored with some of the plants in the borders as they were put in by the previous owner. But you don’t know what to do about it.
You have recently moved into a new build house with a blank canvas of a garden – just a patch of lawn and bare soil in the borders.
Last year you took down an old shed, thinking to make it into an extra, sunny, seating area. But when you stood there having dismantled the shed, you realised its really overlooked, so you haven’t done anything.

As you can see, we have various options that boil down to primarily –

one or two reasonable sized spaces of say 5’ x 3’ or bigger
multiple smaller spaces, from 18” x 18” upwards

What do you do next?

Are you thinking you don’t have that much space? I’d like you to do two things.

Firstly –
Take photos of the borders as whole to get a broad idea of what is growing there (or not!) even if you’re not sure of the plant names.
Then take some closer up photos of the possible areas for a cutting garden – even if they currently have shrubs or a shed there.
Make a cup of tea /coffee and look over the photos, considering whether those areas get at least 6 hours of sunlight (morning or afternoon sun) from April to September.

Secondly –
Get a tape measure, pen and paper. You’re now going to find out roughly the size of those areas.
Sketch out the border, as a rectangle if that’s the approximate shape, it doesn’t have to be precise. Mark on there some key elements so you know which area you’ve measured. For example, next to your favourite rose.
NB – you may be surprised at the size of your flower borders if they’re covered by shrubs. They may well be 3’ deep (as measured from lawn to fence) even in a smaller garden.
Measuring on your own is much easier with a steel tape measure as you can push it into a border that is too overgrown to access. Of course, if you have a small child or well trained dog to scramble through the undergrowth for you, it’s less of an issue.

Back to the house and look over the plan. Hopefully you’re pleasantly surprised at the space you could have available.
On to the next steps.

Preparing Your Mini Cutting Garden

Some of the tasks will depend on what is already in the space or spaces you’ve chosen to grow your cut flowers. But these general points should guide you towards the right places to find more detailed help if needed. Some of the answers will be in the blogs below. But you can also ask a question by email to have answered in the monthly Plews News if you feel it’s one that other gardeners may like to have an answer to.
This preparation can be going on as your inside grown seeds are germinating (see next section) so I suggest you read both before rushing outside to dig.

Soil pH

Do you know how acid or alkaline your garden soil is?
A pH of 6 – 7.2 will suit the vast majority of annuals you’re likely to grow as cut flowers.

Although changing this is complicated, the pH may be less of an issue as annuals are being grown. Small tweaks may be sufficient for one season’s growth. However it is always easier to work with the pH you have, so check the annual flower list in the chalk garden and clay garden articles against the list below.

One of the tweaks is to incorporate a slightly acid or alkaline soil improver in the top soil layer where the flower roots will be. For example, spent mushroom compost is alkaline, whilst an ericaceous peat free potting compost will be acidic.

Dig or no-dig?

The no-dig approach will take longer to be ready (up to a year). And it may be less suitable if you’re slipping in small areas between shrubs.

Double digging and incorporating lots of organic matter may well be an over preparation as annual flowers don’t need much soil depth. However if the soil is very compacted you will need to single dig and loosen the base of the trench, before adding organic matter /soil improver. Lightly firm the soil surface when done.
Do not dig if you have heavy clay and the soil is sticking to your spade; wait until its dried out a bit.

lasagna garden in process, deedavee easyflow on flickr creative commons, lasagne gardening, sheet composting, no dig gardening, edible gardens

The difference between organic matter and soil improver

Organic matter, also referred to as compost, will always improve the soil. But soil improver is made of a combination of various components, for example, one or more of lime, grit, compost.

How nutritious does the soil need to be?

We can ‘cheat’. I have used peat free potting compost designated for vegetables as a quick way to give border soil a boost in the first year as a mini cutting garden.

Of course, being a bit nerdy about soil (as you’d expect from a horticulturist!) I check the pH and the ratios of NPK. NPK are Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium, the three main plant minerals. A shorthand to remember their importance to the plant growth stages is shoots, roots, fruits / flowers.

The importance of soil and how to make the best of what you have in your garden is an important topic in Plews gardening courses. See also the blogs below and the Gardening Glossary pop ups. (you may need to disable your adblocker for this website if they’re not popping up when you hover over the term)

Weeds

You should remove perennial and annual weeds as part of your preparation. It is a good idea to leave the prepared soil for 1 -2 weeks to allow dormant weed seeds to germinate. You can then hoe them off. This also gives you the opportunity to remove perennial weeds roots that got missed the first time round.
It is much easier to weed before sowing and planting your cut flower garden, so it is worth taking the time. Especially if you’re not able to recognise the difference between weeds seedlings and wanted seedlings!

Growing the Flowers for Your Mini Cutting Garden

Annuals

Annual flowers can be grown from seed, bought as plug plants or as trays of bedding. Or indeed as a combination depending on the time and space you have available for growing. In fact, using a combination of these is an easy way of extending the flowering season of your mini cutting garden. Check the links below for advice and videos on seeds and seedlings; plug plants.

Hardy annuals

Are usually sown directly into the ground where you want them to flower. However, if you haven’t prepared the border for them yet, sowing them under cover is a good idea. It also has the advantage of not needing bird scaring stuff where you’ve sown the seeds… Do be aware that many annuals dislike having their roots disturbed, so it may be better to grow in tiny individual pots or modular trays.

Half hardy annuals

These will need to be sown under cover or sown directly outside from mid May, after the last frosts. Both half hardy annuals and what are sometimes referred to as

Tender annuals, frost tender annuals

These are likely to be tender perennials. That is to say, they are plants used to greater winter warmth. It is fine to treat these as annuals rather than perennials if you want them as cut flowers.

cutting garden, , ightham mote, marie shallcross

Should you grow Your Mini Cutting Garden Flowers in Rows?

Where you have the space this is certainly an efficient method. For example: –

When a seedling pops up, if its not in the row, then you’ll know its probably a weed.
Weeding between rows with a hoe reduces walking on the soil, which is good for all sorts of reasons, not least preventing compaction on heavier soils.
It enables you to easily access the flowers for cutting by leaving gaps in between the rows.
If you are growing taller flowers or have a windy garden its easier to create a support framework for the flowers rather than staking them individually.

cut flower garden, growing annual flowers in rows

However, it’s not essential to grow your cut flowers this way. If they are filling in gaps between shrubs in the borders it may not be the best use of space. Or you may want your mini cutting garden to be more decorative or informal.

You’ll still want to make weeding easy, so spread the seed in spirals or circles, marked out first with sand.
Plant seedlings and plug plants in groups of 9 per type in each of your ‘cutting garden spaces’ in a border. This way you’ll have blooms in each space for longer as you’ll only pick a few flowers from each plant at a time.

Some Flowers for Your Mini Cutting Garden

A few suggestions to start you off. Think about what you would like to have as cut flowers in the house. For example, informal posies in small vases. Remember too that you may have homegrown foliage such as ornamental grasses that could be added to your floral display. Would you like a particular colour scheme? Its your garden, you can grow what you like! (so long as the soil and aspect will suit your choices, that is)

You could grow Sweet peas, Lathyrus odoratus an obelisk or tepee. Choose a longer stemmed variety such as the Spencer series.

Hardy annual flowers

Cornflowers, Centaurea cyanus – blue, obviously, also pinks and a lush deep purple-black
Nigella, Love-in-a-mist – blue, pink, white, with feathery foliage and interesting seed heads
Poppies, Papaver – red field poppy, pastel coloured Shirley poppy, dare to be different ladybird poppy and more
Salvia horminum, Salvia viridis – rich blue flower spikes
Sunflower, Helianthus annuus – ‘little Leo’ is a dwarf form
Wild carrot, Queen Anne’s lace, Daucus carota – frothy flowers, feathery foliage

Half hardy annual flowers

Cosmos – feathery foliage
Moluccella laevis, bells of Ireland – green bells cluster up the stem
Snap dragons, Antirrhinum majus – a cottage garden fave that has a spire of flowers
Zinnias – lots of vibrant colours to choose from

What about biennial flowers?

Whilst right at the beginning I referred to annual flowers, I have included biennials here as well. They can be bought as year old plants, either as plug plants or potted, so will flower the year in which you plant them. Good ones for a mini cutting garden include: –

Campanula medium, Canterbury bells – pink, lilac-blue, white, purple
Foxgloves , Digitalis purpurea – go with the native purple flower or white and pink varieties
Honesty, Lunaria annua – white or purple flowered, plus wonderful seed heads
Stocks, Matthiola incana, Brompton stock – scented
Sweet rocket, Hesperis matronalis – scented
Sweet Williams, Dianthus barbatus – scented

And finally

This hasn’t been about creating a separate, designated space for the cut flowers. Or even about reviewing and changing the planting your borders in such a way that they look good year round yet still provide you with cut flowers. Those are both whole new blogs. But have a look at one of my favourite ornamental edible and cut flower gardens for a client here.

What I hope I have shown you is how you could incorporate a mini cutting garden even in relatively small spaces. Because often, that’s all that is available to many of us. And given you some ideas for which annual flowers might fulfil that need without demanding too much time from you.

Most of all, have fun, and ask if you need to know more!

If you would like help with planning a mini cutting garden or adding a larger cut flower garden into your garden, do get in touch. Plews is able to offer you Garden Design or Planting Design , Gardening Lessons, Garden Consultancy Visit, to suit your needs. Please check out relevant pages on the website for more details

For further gardening advice and inspiration, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below – and find us on Instagram and Facebook