From garden to vase: growing your own cut flowers made easy!

Racheal Pascoe in her garden.

Homesteading Column by Racheal Pascoe

There is something wonderful about having fresh flowers in the house. A vase of colour in my kitchen or dining room just lifts me. I love the colour, the smell and best of all, I love that I grew them myself! You can grow your own flowers to enjoy and share with others. I promise it is not that difficult. 

The best ones to start with are sunflowers. They are hardy and once established, they kind of just get on and do their thing. Now, where to buy seeds? The very best value is to buy them by the big scoop at the Nambour Produce Agency. They even have some already bagged up ready to go. This way you can be generous when planting. Get the kids or grandkids involved, they can dig the soil, help you plant and care for them with watering. Many flowers that are good as cut flowers in vases love full sun, so choose your spot in the garden accordingly. Sunflowers need to be grown in the full sun.

Be mindful when planting seeds. Not too deep – not too shallow. A good rule of thumb (green of course!), is that a seed contains enough energy to grow through the soil up to the surface the distance that it is big. So, if a sunflower seed is about a centimetre, then plant the seeds only 1cm below the surface, this way you will have most success with germination.

Sunflowers can be planted in trays or pots or directly in the ground where you want them. Once planted, keep your seeds damp, water each day at the start. You will see some action in 7-10 days. Once they are about 3 inches high, you can cut back the watering to every other day. Sunflowers will take about 10-12 weeks to get glorious heads on them. When picking them to enjoy inside, strip each stalk of most of the leaves, to reduce wilting. Oh and don’t forget to leave a couple of heads out there for the bees and parrots! 

So many flowers to grow

There are lots of other flowers you could grow at your place to bring inside as cut flowers. Zinnias are so wonderfully colourful. (They are the ones in the pic with me). Billy Button, Straw flowers, Statice, Queens Lace, Kangaroo paw… there are so many to get excited about. Sidestep the florist or even buying them from the grocery store. Heading indoors with a beautiful armful of homegrown flowers is a very rewarding feeling and sharing some flowers with others is just the best!

If you are looking for a bunch of bright flowers right now, today… then look no further than gerberas. They come in sensational colours and are grown locally. Pop into Rosemount Gerberas and let Andrew set you up with a bunch of bright happy blooms to take home. They are located at 506 Petrie Creek Road, Rosemount.

Join me next time for lots of info on keeping chickens. Happy Homesteading!