I love to have flowers in the house, especially ones that I have cut from the garden. My garden isn’t big enough to have a separate cutting patch, but if it were I would like to have something different from the usual regimented straight lines which, although allowing easy access and cultivation, remind me too much of my granddad’s rows of dahlias, which produced a better harvest of earwigs than blooms most years.
No, I would like something more whimsical, so I have designed a ‘snail shell’ plot, based on the Fibonacci spiral (and I would put up a sign to the effect that this would be the only snail allowed in my garden!). The flowers are still easy to get to via a main path, and smaller paths between the blocks of flowers, so cultivation and maintenance would not pose a problem. I should say that the flowers included here are my favourites, and I know that bees like them too, but you could easily make substitutions.
Because these are flowers for cutting, I have abandoned the usual blueprint of focus, framework, flowers and filler plants; they are all decorative, otherwise they wouldn’t look good in a vase! Instead, I have split them into sections of perennials and annuals, with some tulips edging the main path. Although not strictly speaking an annual, I have included Dahlia in this section since, being tender, its tubers need to be lifted and stored each autumn.
A major point to remember when you are growing flowers both for cutting and for bees is that the optimum time for the ‘harvest’ of each is different. If you want the maximum vase-life from your flowers you must cut them before you see any loose pollen. This is because the flower is a plant’s reproduction mechanism. It is there to attract pollinating insects; once pollinated, the seed will grow and the flower itself will die away. Most species can be cut in the bud stage, as long as there is some petal colour showing, or when the petals have just begun to unfurl. (Dahlias are the exception – only cut these when they are fully open, but before the pollen starts to loosen.) But we want to provide food for bees, too, so it follows that we must allow some of the flowers to release pollen.
The best way forward, I think, is that for every stem you cut, leave one for the bees – that way everybody’s happy!