Читать книгу In Bloom - Clare Nolan - Страница 4

As a stylist in the early days of my career working on interiors for magazines, I experienced beautiful flowers in the form of stunning displays at product launches and worked with them on photoshoots, but I didn’t necessarily have the budget to buy them for myself and make them part of my own world at home. When my raiding and foraging for flowers became out of hand, I had to do something, so I started growing my own – first in giant wooden planters made from scaffolding boards set out on the concrete of my London back garden, and then, when my name got to the top of the waiting list at our local allotment site, I upscaled things there by growing flowers in among my vegetables. Now that I’ve moved to the countryside, where I’ve been able to put my roots down in every sense, I’ve planted a dedicated cutting patch at the bottom of my cottage garden. It’s sometimes a juggle – with work, two toddlers who like to remove all my plant labels, and a dog that likes to dig – but it’s a dream come true.

I’ve been gardening ever since I saw my first red lettuce on a school trip to a market garden and wanted to grow one myself. I graduated to sunflowers, then tomatoes, and by that time I was hooked. Planting cut flowers brings that “grow-your-own” excitement to a whole new level – being able to step out of the back door and pick a single stem to go beside the bed, pull together a bouquet for a friend to take home, or cut an armload of annuals for a party is a joy. Flowers are an emotional marker through our lives, a symbolic gesture to mark our rights of passage – moments of joy, sadness, passion, and love. It’s unbelievably special to honor these with your garden-gathered blooms.

Growing your own also gives you a connection to nature. Once you’re hooked on flower growing (and, trust me, you will be), you’ll start weather watching, you’ll notice things more, you’ll see things clearly. If the evening air feels nippy, you’ll wonder if you need to fleece your newly planted dahlias to protect them; if you spy rain clouds on the horizon, you’ll consider heading outside to pick those first precious roses before the deluge batters their petals.

Cosmos.

A classic late-summer mix of roses and dahlias with lots of grasses.

My potting shed, where the growing process begins with seed sowing and ends with conditioning my flowers.

My little garden helpers, Alexander and William, and my constant companion, Monty, our Brittany dog; roses in the window of my potting shed.

Another thing I love is being able to grow flowers that I could only dream about getting my hands on otherwise – it’s exciting to hunt for new, interesting varieties to try each season. For me, it’s an extension of styling my home. Choosing what to grow is so personal – the plants I’ve selected for this book are the ones I love to fill my house with and look at. They are, on the whole, blooms that perform in the garden as well as the vase – many with knockout scent to boot. There are some plants I simply don’t bother growing, as I don’t like them, they aren’t strong growers, or they don’t fit my style. I hope you will compile your own list, adding your favorites, perhaps alongside mine from this book.

Growing your own cut flowers allows you to control not only what you plant but also how you grow and when you pick them. I’ll let some flowers go to seed to harvest for their seed pods – the delicate, papery, puffed-up heads of nigella, the opaque, glass-like disks of honesty, and the dried pom-poms of scabious are all stunning and will provide you with material that feels right for the season in your arrangements. I might ruthlessly strike before a bloom is in its prime just because I like the look of the bud. Picking flowers at different stages of development to use in the same arrangement really adds a natural, garden-grown feel – you just don’t get that with store-bought flowers.

Yes, it’s an investment in time, but it’s 100 percent worth it. There’s something so special about heading into the garden after a long day with the kids or at work and coming back with a few flowers for the house. It’s like having the best flower shop in the world at the bottom of your garden just waiting for you and your pruning shears.

Roses and sweet peas in the early evening light of late summer.

Beauty in the imperfect, rain-mottled roses.