Grow Your Own Cut Flowers: Amazon.co.uk: Sarah Raven: Books

Review

Everyone loves cut flowers in the house but many gardeners are loathe to cut flowers from their own gardens for fear of diminishing the dispay outside. Sarah Raven, doyenne of the cutting garden, attempts to dispel that myth in "Grow Your Own Cut Flowers", showing how the choice of plants grown affects their cutting and reflowering abilities thus getting the best of both worlds. From small town gardens to larger country gardens such as Sarah's, annuals, biennials and bulbs can be grown in such a way as to provide fresh cut flowers throughout the year. Either interspersed amongst existing borders or grown separately in a cutting garden, beautiful arrangements can be simply made whilst leaving a still colourful border intact. Easy to read, although at times more advanced than necessary for a newcomer, it gives clear instructions on how to grow the best plants, both floral and foliar, from seed, cuttings, bulbs and tubers. Cutting garden designs are included along with the best methods of sowing and aftercare. Comprehensive plant lists follow each plant type with descriptions, roles and uses together with any specific growing requirements. The book ends on examples of flower arranging and their techniques in typical Raven style - original, eclectic, bold and absolutely stunning. Beautifully photographed at Sarah Raven's house in Perch Hill, Sussex by Jonathan Buckley, the photographs inspire the reader to find out how they too can create such arrangements for themselves. As Sarah says in her introduction, "it is the generous gardener who has the most flowers" and by growing the plants in this book not only will you have a house full of flowers but a garden full too.

Product Description

Grow Your Own CUT FLOWERS distils everything Sarah Raven has learnt in five years of testing and cultivating the best possible cut flowers for growing at home. If you want to grow your own cut flowers, there could be no better guide in the world. The book ties-in with an eight-part five-minute mini-series on Gardeners World in spring 2002. Grow Your Own CUT FLOWERS is for the flower arranger who wants to grow their own flowers, but has never gardened before, and for the gardener who knows how to grow their own flowers, but wants ideas to fill a house with their harvest. It demystifies the world of floristry, giving away all the insiders' tips on sowing seed, conditioning flowers and making simple, but stylish arrangements a tied bunch, a large vase, a table centre and more elaborate party flowers. No alarming terms, complex procedures or slabs of wordy text here Grow Your Own Cut Flowers is written more like a cookery book with recipes than a traditional gardening book. Illustrated with over 250 striking colour photographs by Jonathan Buckley, Grow Your Own Cut Flowers is stylish and inspirational as well as practical and accessible. THE AUTHOR WILL UNDERTAKE TO AMERICANIZE THE TEXT FOR ANY CO-EDITIONS.

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155 of 159 people found the following review helpful

Not what I thought 18 Dec 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I just thought I would write a review for this book incase anyone makes the same mistake as me. I bought this book thinking that it would be a comprehensive guide to growing cut flowers with detailed information on lots of plants, cultivation, disease, storage, etc. For someone who wants specialst advice, has gardening knowledge and who wants more detail and information on producing cut flowers this is not the book for you. However although a lovely book,this is more a book for someone who likes to look at nice pictures, wants a brief idea of how to lay out their back garden to grow a few detailed flowers for their kitchen table. The idea is great but if you are passionate and wnat more than a browsing book I think this one may let you down - if you have average gardening knowledge, an idea of flowers you like and know how to continually cut flowers so they keep producing over a long season, then this book won't give you any more useful information. It would be good for someone who has never contemplated cutting a flower before and needs to be tempted to do so.

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63 of 65 people found the following review helpful

"practical as well as inspirational" 25 Feb 2002

By Jane Lindsey (euan.glen@0virgin.net)

This is a follow on to 'The Cutting Garden', not an alternative version. It reflects Sarah Raven's concentration on growing bulbs, annuals and biennials to give cut and come again flowers for the house. As well as beautiful and inspirational photographs there are masses of practical tips, clear instructions and an honesty about what Sarah Raven has learned from experience. Her views on planting distances, feeding plants and siting bulbs have changed during since writing 'The Cutting Garden' and the results of her experiments appear here.
An enjoyable and encouraging book to read while dreaming of harvesting armfuls of flowers.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Useful 'yes' but user friendly 'no' 10 Jan 2010

By JCR

I bought this book specifically to help me grow cut flowers for my daughter's wedding in September. I am a complete novice at growing and arranging flowers so I found much of the information very useful. However, the information I needed was often difficult to find. What was lacking was a chart clearly listing the flowers that would be in bloom for each month. I had to find out what cut flowers to grow for September by reading the book from cover to cover and using post-it notes for the relevant bits that I needed. More step by step instructions on how to grow and arrange flowers were needed; there was an assumption that the reader knew a lot about gardening. The book is certainly beautifully produced but not, as they say, `user friendly'.