Gardening with Flowers
Choosing the best Diggers selections for the cutting garden

Just as gardeners create separate spaces for the growing of vegetables called the ‘kitchen garden’, the flowers that are grown for cutting because of their long stems also have a specific garden location called the ‘cutting garden’.
The one characteristic of flowers that display well in a vase is that they have long stems with flowers that usually appear at the top of a stem. This attribute, which is ideal for display in vases, makes them top-heavy soloists that look oddly out of place with other garden-worthy perennials, which need to combine with each other to create pleasing pictures.
Achilleas (Yarrows) are one of a few exceptions, with fern-like foliage at ground level and upright, straight stems, which makes them brilliant, garden-worthy flowers for borders that also integrate well in the wilder garden.
Nearly all florist flowers are grown by professional flower growers under glass or plastic covers, like long-stemmed hybrid tea roses which can produce flowers every month of the year.
Some flowers collapse in a few hours, and wilt like poppies with the exception of Iceland Poppies. Some flowers have eternal lives and will last for up to 10 years, like Pink Statice and Bunny’s Tails, provided they are collected dry in bunches without water.