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Choosing your blooms

This is your chance to dream – there’ll be plenty of time to think about the practicalities later. It’s time to think about which flowers make your heart sing and imagine the blooms that will be filling the vases in your home. For me, it’s all about being able to grow things you can’t buy in shops easily – or, if you can, they are hard to come by and expensive.

BECOME A MODERN-DAY PLANT HUNTER

Track down flowers that you love in friends’ gardens, or that you see at horticultural shows. Let your heart (and nose) guide you, not a catalog – colors can be misleading in print (as can the sometimes lofty descriptions). One of my prized flowers for cutting is Rosa ‘Yves piaget’, a ridiculously blousy rose with a heady scent that stopped me in my tracks on a work trip to Paris once and now has pride of place in my cutting patch.

TAKE INTO ACCOUNT YOUR PERSONAL STYLE

Go for what you love rather than following trends. In the past I’ve grown certain flowers because I felt I should, because they were the color or flower of the moment and all over Instagram. It’s simple: if you don’t really love something, you won’t bother picking it. Save yourself the time and energy and use the precious growing space for something you chose from the heart.

BE AWARE OF YOUR SIGNATURE COLORS

If your home is floor-to-ceiling muted heritage colors and your wardrobe a sea of neutrals, you may want to reflect that in your palette of plants. Having said that, don’t let personal style and home decor limit your choice; a bucket of cottagey flowers can work as well in a modern scheme as a traditional country one. Let your heart lead you and you won’t go far wrong.

BE OPEN-MINDED

The fruiting branches of red currants and raspberries, a trail of nasturtiums, or a stem of not-quite-ripe tomatoes all look just as beautiful in an arrangement as a typical cut flower does. Be brave and try something new to you, even if everyone else thinks it a little eccentric. If you grow your own fruit and veg, or can persuade someone who does to let you raid their patch, try out berries and tomatoes, and give raspberry leaves, dill, fennel, basil, angelica, and apple mint a go – they add another layer of scent.

Discovering dahlias at a flower show.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ‘Silver Spring’ allium; Luciano Giubbilei’s stunning planting at Chelsea Flower Show many years ago inspired me to plant ‘Buckeye Belle’ peony and bronze fennel in my cutting garden; Dahlias at a flower show; I keep sketchbooks where I’ll make notes of any inspiring ideas I come across.