How is your garden/cutting patch doing? Mine has been a bit battered by the heavy rain and winds but the rain has definitely given everything a boost including the weeds. The garden needed the rain but we’d like a bit of sun too, you can’t win with us gardeners! Its been quite a bit cooler up here this week. I always feel like I’m chasing my tail at this time of year, some areas are getting a bit out of hand with weeds, the Cornflowers and Corncockle have taken a bit of a battering and the sweet rocket needs cutting back. There is still a bit of planting for me to do, lots of staking and supporting of plants, deadheading and cutting flowers and watering in the greenhouse. Its the reality of gardening, most of us don’t have quite enough time, especially if we are working. But I try to break it down into areas and just try and do a bit little and often. I don’t make it easy for myself, my garden is the only high maintence thing about me! But I love gardening, its the doing in the garden that I love. So I have lots of annuals, biennials and perennials and I try and make my cut flowers as successional as possible and do grow a mad range of things, but mostly in small amounts. It will settle down by the end of June when I have all my late summer annuals planted, like Zinnias and Rudbeckias. Then I can just concentrate on the fun part, harvesting them and getting creative with floral arrangements.
This arrangement celebrates the Sweet rocket that was in abundance in late May and into June, here we have Hesperis ‘Purple’ and Hesperis ‘Alba’, along with the autumn sown Orlaya grandiflora and the seed sown perennial Knautia ‘Melton Pastels’. This is from last years sowing and its flowering with abandon this year. It also contains Persicaria bistorta ‘Superba’, Polemonium ‘Apricot Beauty’, Centaurea montana and a lovely pink Aquilegia.
Sweet Rocket is one of the most reliable flowers in my cutting patch for May and June, its a biennial plant and now is the time for sowing your biennials. If you need more encouragement on this, do look at my recent blog post, and also Ben’s post. I’m sowing mine this weekend, I sow into small seed trays (as I don’t have room at this time of year to direct sow). Sow thinly on the surface of a good peat-free compost, cover lightly with more compost and then sit in a tray of water to allow the water to percolate up. They don’t need to be in a greenhouse, just a sheltered part of your garden but just remember to keep them well watered. Once germinated they can be pricked out into individual pots and then just grow them on till you are ready to plant them out in August/September time. More information can be found in the Higgledy Garden seed sowing guide. Other biennials to sow now are Foxgloves, Wallflowers, Honesty, Sweet William and Canterbury Bells. Sweet Williams are flowering in abundance now in my garden, this year for some reason I only planted Sweet William ‘Alba’ and ‘Nigricans’. They are fabulous and are a good base for many of my posies at this time of year but I have missed the vibrant pinks and purples too. So I will be sowing them again this year.
This was one of my favourite arrangements so far this year which featured the rich dark almost black flowers of Sweet William ‘Nigricans’ and Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, with the really unusual coppery brown flowers of Bupleurum longifolium ‘Bronze Beauty’ and the buttery brown foliage of Physocarpus ‘Amber Jubilee’. Alchemilla mollis adds a vibrant acid green and the white airy flowers of Silene vulgaris.
My autumn sown annuals are starting into flower, including some of my favourites the Cornflowers that I have written about recently in a blog post here. There are just so reliable and I will be cutting them for a good few weeks. They are great for adding vibrant colour into a posy or dramatic contrast.
This posy features the fabulous Cornflower ‘Blue ball’, with the perennial cornflower Centaurea montana, Geranium magnificum and more Alchemilla mollis. 
A had a little patch in my garden with autumn sown Orlaya grandiflora and Candytuft ‘Crown’ and these have loved the sunny spot. It was my first time growing Candytuft and its a sweet little thing and seems very long flowering. 
So in this arrangement I used the Candytuft, with more Knautia ‘Melton Pastels’, Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, Sweet William ‘Nigricans’, Alchemilla mollis and Allium roseum.
Another unsung hero of the cutting patch now is Corncockle and what a delicate beautiful flower but the plant is a toughie, comes through any amount of cold over winter to flower away in June for a few weeks. Always timing its flowering with the Cornflowers so I often plant them together. This year they are in my front garden. I’m also growing a cultivated form called Corncockle ‘Bianca’ a white form and a pale pink form too Corncockle ‘Rose’.
Just look at the beautiful dotted lines down to the centre of the flower. And the buds are beautiful too.
It is the showstopper flower in this posy. 
Also contains Cornflower ‘Mauve Ball’, Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’, Candytuft ‘Crown’, Gypsophila ‘Covent Garden’ and some Sweet Peas ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’, ‘Leamington’ and ‘Noel Sutton’ to add some delicious scent.
So yes the sweet peas are flowering in earnest now and I will be adding these to my bouquets, but also love picking that first big bunch.
So this month the Ranunculus have come out of their raised beds (I’m not throwing them away though, I’ve put them somewhere tucked away to die back and then I will dry them and plant them again next autumn) and the beds have been topped up with compost and replanted with Cosmos, Amaranthus, Didiscus, Phlox and Sunflowers. Still need to plant my Zinnias which seem to have done well this year. But nearly there and then everything will be in. Then just keeping an eye on slugs which after the dry spring when they seemed almost absent and back with avengeance now. But its nice to see why outdoor display getting filled with flowers again now.
Its still time to sow your biennials. We have a special offer on at the moment for a 25% off bundle which includes 10 lovely varieties. Click here.
Hope your flower gardens are filling with flowers, happy picking.
Higgledy Anne
(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow, I’ve also joined Bluesky Anne Hinks)