The 10 flowers I can't live without
And a downloadable guide to starting your own
Ok, this is a rather crazy idea. I could just as easily write a list of the top 25 flowers I can’t live without. I feel like I’m chopping off a few fingers just for the sake of fitting into an 8 fingered set of gloves. But for the sake of fun, similar to those if you could only take one person to a tropical island and if you could only ever eat 2 types of food, what would they be?, here are mine. These 10 happen to be spread out almost across the year, so this list could be my bare minimum planting list for blooms (almost) all year long. Cosmos and larkspur shimmied in and out of 10th spot, which is odd as one of them I can barely grow.
In the order they grow throughout the year (so that I don’t offend any more of them!) here they are:
Sweet peas
Fragrance in a garden is everything and their scent lifts the coldest of winter mornings. I love their wild growing tendrils and vertical, structural features in the garden (the adventure of sweet pea tunnels and corridors!) Plus they’re easy to save seed from as they are self pollinating and won’t cross pollinate with other colours.
Iceland poppies
A crepe-paper teacup on a slender, stretched stem that your inner-artist and the bees will go crazy for. Produces plenty of seed that you will make your life’s project to try germinate, which is very telling of my obsession (my field notes suggest your best chance is to scatter copious amounts of seed as if you don’t care whether they grow or not, try to neglect them, and don’t keep field notes)
Stocks (matthiola incana)
For their ability to invoke a creamy-vanilla-clove reverie in the middle of winter. The most delicious scent in a flower their ever was. The double-petaled versions are my favourite (I’ll always be a sucker for frills and layers), a single-petaled version is pictured here above the calendula, among the tulips (madness, it was, making it a list of 10)
Butterfly Ranunculus
They have the most incredible vase life (14 days) and effortlessly produce clusters of dainty sheeny petals on multiple long stems. So worth the cost.
Nigella “love in a mist”
The world in a flower. Delicate perfection with snowflake aspirations, their papery-balloon seed pods are textured, adding interesting elements to a design too. Also easy to save seed from.
Roses (the chalice variety)
Romance, romance, romance, I want to fall into these. There is a lot to be said about perennials too, they’re the more sustainable choice and a yearly pruning is easier than the story with annuals - saving and storing seed and starting all over again.
Bearded Irises
Incredible scent and blooms in almost every colour of the spectrum, as their name suggests. The pure indulgence of cutting that one stem of buds produced per plant in spring, and then having to wait until autumn when you *may* get another. Another one for team perennial too. One stem will spoil you with a week of flowers, even though each flower only lasts 3 days, a new bud opens every few days.
Narcissus
2 reasons. Frills and reverence. They bloom once, and once a year and you will feel like a rebel growing these yourself and waiting for this week all year. Actually, 3 - perennial power again.
Dahlias
Of course for their generosity, but it’s also their height and vigour, dahlias pump out an abundance of blooms in varied whimsical forms from pom-poms, to pinwheels to waterlily romance in shades upon shades. Yes they’re perennials too and you get to play plant breeder and secret santa with yourself if you save their seed too, and plant them next year to get completely unique and never before seen genetic combinations (and the chance to breed the next cafe au lait).
Cosmos
I can barely grow it but there it is existing wildly and tauntingly beautifully along the roadside. After truly visualizing myself being in a terrible predicament, two tiny seed packs being presented to me with 5 seconds to choose just one, before stepping onto a plane, with someone shouting hurry!! (a necessary exercise for circumventing analysis paralysis) I chose cosmos. For its form and function perfection - floaty height and beauty-in-simplicity blooms, cut-and-grow-again characteristics (I can’t refuse generous flowers), ease of seed collection too. But perhaps really for my ever-hopeful personality (and often, vice. Something about insanity and doing the same thing over again expecting a different result?). Will try again.
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment.
I want to give that world to someone else.
What would you put on your top 10, quick choice before you rush onto the plane, your life depends on it, list?
And as promised, here is a free sample of my beginner’s guide to starting your own flowers-for-picking garden.
P.S. all your images are just absolute perfection.
Ohh what gorgeous photos and flower selection! I wouldn’t mind at all to have them both in my space 🥰