Cutting edge style

MOTHER'S DAY, BIRTH-days, anniversaries, or just because you feel like it. All are viable reasons for buying a bunch of flowers.

But what if you were able to pick those flowers from your own garden? Not only would it save you a bit of money, you'd know they weren't "unfair" trade and were locally grown, not to mention as fresh as possible. But for many of us, there's a reluctance to chop garden flowers – we either feel that we're depriving the garden of colour or that we're cruelly shortening the flower's lifespan. If these thoughts have flitted through your mind while you waver over a rose bush, secateurs in hand, maybe it's time for a change in attitude. Gardener, author and TV presenter Sarah Raven certainly thinks so.

From her home in Sussex, Raven runs a gardening school which teaches people about the joys of growing your own cut flowers. She says that gardeners with flower-cutting phobias are not unusual. "I teach twice a week and out of a group of 20, probably five will say they have lovely gardens but don't want to pick from them," she says.

Far from depleting the beauty of your garden, she explains, picking flowers (from the right plants) will ensure that they go on looking fuller and brighter for longer. It takes just a little effort, but the reward is that you can fill your house with blooms and have bunches galore to take to friends – all without having any detrimental effect on your garden.

The secret is to grow cut-and-come-again flowers – the plants that quickly re-grow after picking, providing more flowers within a couple of days. It's a characteristic that applies to all hardy and half-hardy annuals, most biennials and all dahlias. Supplement these with spring and summer-flowering bulbs such as hyacinths, alliums and lilies and you'll have the ingredients for dazzling bouquets from March until November.

"I think cut-flower growing will become more and more popular," says Raven. "People are becoming aware of where their flowers come from and it does seem a bit stupid to spend money on something that's been flown from the other side of the world when Britain has a better climate for growing lots of these things anyway."

So where to start? Raven has a dedicated cutting patch, certainly a good option if you have the space – she gives details of how you can create one in Grow Your Own Cut Flowers (BBC Books, £20). But you can just as easily incorporate your flowers for cutting into the established framework of your garden. "You can scatter clumps of cut-and-come-again flowers through your already established flowers and that works very well too," she says. "Things like cosmos 'Purity', helianthus 'Vanilla Ice' and sweet williams are cut-and-come-again, but you don't need to put them in a separate patch at all."

Nor do you need a big budget – cheap packets of seed and a few bulbs and tubers will get you started. According to Raven, ten minutes' work a week per square metre will be sufficient to keep things flourishing.

She suggests we compare a square metre planted with peonies with one stocked with cutting annuals. "From the peonies, you'll pick one or two buckets of blooms over a period of about two to three weeks. From the same space given over to English or pot marigolds or honeywort you can pick a bucket of flowers twice a week for two months – and the plants will still be flowering," she says. "With half-hardy annuals, such as snapdragons, nicotianas, rudbeckias and cosmos, all famed for their length of flowering, the picking season will be twice as long."

So yes, you need to sow annuals every year, but that extra effort is worth it. Raven points out that one of the most common beginner's mistakes is to plant nothing but flowers. "When I design a patch for somebody I always put in 50/50 foliage and flowers," she says.

Just like the rest of the garden, the cutting garden does need feeding, weeding and watering. These plants will also benefit from staking to support them as they grow. "That's really important," says Raven. "If they fall over and then continue growing, you don't get straight stems – and the plant doesn't look so good."

Having got your cutting garden blossoming, you might well think that all you now have to to do is cut your flowers and drop them in a vase, but it's worth taking a little care.

Among your essential kit should be extra-sharp florist's scissors, two buckets (one for stripped leaves and one for standing the flowers in water after cutting) plus gloves to protect your hands from the irritating sap of some plants. Raven says it's also important to condition flowers after picking – letting them sit in a bucket of water in a cool, dark place overnight, or at least a few hours, should improve their shelf life. Any plants that look floppy should have the bottom 2.5-5cm of their stems seared in boiling water for 30 seconds to rejuvenate them. As for flower food, you can make your own by adding one tablespoon of sugar, one tablespoon of vinegar and one teaspoon of bleach to a 30cm vase of flowers. The sugar acts as food; the bleach and vinegar inhibit bacteria growth.

As for the arranging, it's an acquired skill, although Raven follows a simple recipe using six ingredients – three foliage plants as a backdrop and three varieties of flowers ("the bride, the bridesmaid and the gatecrasher") for maximum results. "I was teaching beginner's floristry yesterday and it's a really good take-home recipe that people can practise," she says. "It's very easy to achieve something nice."

So if you've ever been tempted to flex your creative muscles in the garden (or just fancy saving a bit of money when a special occasion comes around), a cutting patch might be just the way to go about it.

For details of Sarah Raven's gardening school visit www.perchhill.co.uk For more information about her books and seed catalogue, visit www.sarahraven.com