Cut flower corner - what to pick this month

Creating displays from garden flowers is fun and creative, and the act of scouring the garden for colour each month will help ensure you have flowers to pick all year round.

If you’re lucky enough to still have blossom in your garden, florist Hazel Gardiner, speaking on BBC Gardener’s Question Time, recommends making each stem one and a half to two times the height of the vase to keep the stems and vase in proportion.  As well as cutting stems at an angle, she recommends cutting them vertically to allow a large amount of water to flow up the stem.

Tulips are still blooming and make amazing cut flowers.  They come in such a fabulous range of colours and varieties, from delicate parrot tulips to blousy doubles and fringed varieties.  Pick them early in the morning when their stems are most full of water and put them straight into water.  They continue to grow after being cut and, being phototropic, they bend towards the light, so Hazel recommends letting them be loose, giving them plenty of space.

Ranunculus is another florist's favourite and comes in a wonderful array of colours.  Hazel’s absolute hero is R. ‘Pink Hanoi’ which she says has a ‘super large head and you only need a handful’.  Other flowering plants at this time of year include honesty Lunaria annua, anchusa and anthriscus.  Finally, a little posy of lily of the valley or wallflowers will fill the house with perfume.

Note:  The image is of the tulips flowering in the Genus garden in the Cotswolds.