Advertisement

How to create a cutting garden that's no-plastic and low on weeding

High impact: Charlie Ryrie in her Dorset garden holding an armful of goldenrod with white aster ‘Herbstschnee’ behind - Andrew Crowley
High impact: Charlie Ryrie in her Dorset garden holding an armful of goldenrod with white aster ‘Herbstschnee’ behind - Andrew Crowley

Flower growers, just like food producers, have an important role to play in improving soil health and increasing diversity in our gardens and landscape. Growing cut flowers sustainably does not mean less choice, just a slightly different plant palette and management style.

Since I first planted flowers to cut and sell in 2002, I have been seeking my personal holy grail of productive, low-impact gardening, which means growing plants without irrigation or shelter and minimal weeding, trying to avoid using plastics and external inputs.

After seven years spent developing a rather maintenance-heavy site, an unexpected house move helped me change focus from what to grow, to how to grow. Instead of concentrating on individual flowering plants, I now aim for communities of interrelated plants that grow happily together, supporting each other.

There’s nothing new in this; companion planting has long been recognised, but too often relegated to a slightly naive area of gardencraft. It’s grown up now, and a major factor in creating sustainable ecosystems.

Rather than beginning with a specific wishlist of showy flowers and working out how to grow them in your space, start by thinking what will suit your garden, then about the ways plants grow in the wild.

Bare soil is rare in nature so, when deciding on your cut flower palette, don’t focus just on the main contenders, think about the important ground cover layer and maybe a middle layer too. Surround your main players with a living mulch of cuttable companions, which help keep plants and soil in good order.

Root systems

Roses that flower into November include Clare Austin (white); Generous Gardener (pink) and Sweet Juliet (apricot). All by David Austin - Andrew Crowley
Roses that flower into November include Clare Austin (white); Generous Gardener (pink) and Sweet Juliet (apricot). All by David Austin - Andrew Crowley

Think about the shape of a plant’s roots when planning your palette. Ideally, ground cover should be prolific enough to hold its own without hindering the growth of its companions.

For example, I surround deep rooting peonies with a ground-covering layer of perennial cornflower (Centaurea montana), which has shallow spreading roots, doesn’t compete for resources, and leaves no room for unwelcome visitors. Gently spreading brunneras also do a fine job alongside even fairly shallow-rooted neighbours; they are good among most herbaceous plants.

The early red foliage of Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’ is good for picking and runs rampant beneath shrubs and woody perennials, leaving little opportunity for weeds to take hold. Tellima grandiflora is attractive among bulbs and perennials in spring, happy to move around companions rather than obliterating them.

Lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis) has completely taken over part of one bed in my garden, with ammi and nigella self-seeding over them as the year progresses. Mints make good ground cover under shrubs in heavy soil, and Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum multiflorum) can colonise shady areas under trees preventing ­nettle or bramble incursion.

Lasting favourites

Perennials have often been sidelined as cut flowers in favour of the instant pizzazz of masses of annuals, but they have always been the backbone of my cutting gardens, along with bulbs, flowering shrubs and climbers. They are in it for the long haul and need appropriate soil and good companions.

You can make anything grow, given enough attention and good soil conditions, but I want plants to grow happily without much help from me. My heavy clay isn’t best for flower production, as it tends to waterlog or bake, but roses love it, spring bulbs and many shrubs cope, and a good range of herbaceous plants tolerate it.

I mulch with home-made compost, leaf mould and muck, but I don’t water even in high summer – although autumn production would be more varied if I did.

One reasonably thorough weeding session in spring keeps bindweed, couch grass and buttercups in check, and after that things take their course – I like weeding, it’s a good opportunity to see what’s going on, but I want to do it when I want to, not because I have to. More important is to deadhead to prolong flowering. I didn’t cut or deadhead much this Covid ­summer, and it definitely resulted in decreased production from the annuals and perennials.

Some plants like their own company best; others prefer the company of strangers. I struggled for years with the delicate bellflower (Campanula persicifolia), and I put it down to my heavy soil. But you never see a large patch of bellflowers in nature; instead, there will be single stems dotted through the grass. They actively prefer growing here through daisies and low grasses, whereas Campanula lactiflora forms are much more robust.

It’s the same with fritillaries; F. meleagris were eaten by mice and squirrels every year when planted in dedicated beds, but now wander freely along the edge of the wild spring garden as the bluebells fade.

Plant  habits

Perennial beds two years after planting; vibrant end-of-summer rudbeckias and blue asters - Andrew Crowley
Perennial beds two years after planting; vibrant end-of-summer rudbeckias and blue asters - Andrew Crowley

Some useful plants, including Achillea ptarmica, persicarias and Lysimachia clethroides are very fond of their own company and will cover the ground in huge drifts whatever the conditions. Deep-rooters such as eryngiums and perovskia generally don’t care about weedy feet, and foxgloves and verbascum grow anywhere.

However, some shallow-rooting flowering plants need to be planted closely together to form their own dense ground cover. Astrantias are best grown together as they are very prone to incursion from buttercups and grasses, but buttercups romp around crocosmias, veronicastrum, rudbeckias and astilbes, they are easy to remove when soil is damp and their myriad little roots mine and aerate the soil.

When grown in large blocks, Phlox paniculata can succumb to mildew but when grown alongside other perennials they seem problem-free; thalictrums are also gregarious but asters will commandeer as large a block of space as you’ll allow them, overpowering even serious weeds such as nettles and thistles.

Delphiniums are mainstays of many cutting gardens, wonderfully showy once established into self-supporting groups, but hard to get going without serious attention as slugs love to hide in any ground cover ready for a spring feast. I now prefer the rich blue spires of Baptisia australis and B. ‘Indigo Spires’; they are initially slow to clump but then hold their own against vigorous companions.

Attractive annuals

Charlie's flower studio in October  -  Charlie Ryrie
Charlie's flower studio in October - Charlie Ryrie

Annuals are different beasties. Many grow best in distinct blocks untroubled by the chatter of strangers. By definition short-lived, annuals don’t have time to evolve strategies to deal with competition, so when you grow them in a block they support each other.

I grow beds of largely self-seeded mixed hardy annuals, and use them as companions for roses to encourage pollinators. A living mulch of hardy annuals beneath roses means no weeding and plenty of insect activity. Catmint (Nepeta) works well as a living mulch too but likes being fed as much as the roses and gets rather bulky.

I still have landscape fabric as weed control around the roses, first laid 18 years ago, but next year I plan to take it up and plant Libertia formosa, Sisyrinchium striatum and Lespedeza thunbergii to ramble through the roses, with rough grass paths. Then I will be plastic-free.

Mixed beds

Apart from the main gardens I have a few well-mulched raised beds where I nod to cut flower fashion – ranunculus have a dedicated area, along with De Caen anemones, oversown with ever-useful ammi, larkspur, Gypsophila elegans ‘Covent Garden’ and Orlaya grandiflora. Seedlings are watered, along with vegetables, but nothing else. I also raise some annuals in modules for plugging gaps in beds.

When a garden is planted on a mixed ecological model, there shouldn’t be much maintenance; instead the focus is management. Once established, layered perennial beds require no more than a once or twice yearly sort-out with selective removal and splitting of plants and replacement of any failures, plus regular mulching.

I cut down the mixed annual beds in September, saving some seed but leaving chopped stalks and most seed heads as mulch, allowing seedlings to grow through in spring then removing the roughest mulch. These beds always contain cornflowers, scabious, snapdragons, nigellas, ammis, annual phlox, wallflowers and various poppies, along with marigolds and bugloss, and generally a few surprises.

Sometimes initially invited plants can become more of an issue than conventional weeds – I fight with quaking grass (Briza maxima), pretty though it is. Given its head it would take over every bed, and each spring I remove many barrowfuls of seedlings.

Growing diversity

It takes longer to pick flowers from mixed beds than blocks of single ­varieties, but you gain time from ­minimal gardening, and you gain increasing diversity of insects, birds and wildlife. An ecological model is arguably easier to establish in larger gardens but in a small space you can still attend to ground cover and choose suitable companions.

It isn’t easy to guarantee specific blemish-free blooms in rough weather without protection, but smart planting choices (and eagle-eyed weather-watching) mean you can always have a reasonable choice.

Fuss-free autumn perennials

These plants never let you down, and never need weeding.

Left: Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’; right, ‘Little Carlow’ (blue) - Gap Photos
Left: Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’; right, ‘Little Carlow’ (blue) - Gap Photos

Rudbeckia ‘Little Henry’, ‘Goldsturm’ and Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ – clump-forming, not invasive

Grasses: Molinia caerulea (up to 1m), M. caerulea subsp. arundinacea (to 2m)

Asters: ‘Little Carlow’ (blue); ‘Herbstschnee’ (white)

Valuable mid-level colonisers

Hesperis matronalis - Gap Photos
Hesperis matronalis - Gap Photos

Euphorbia seguieriana and E. oblongata – not thuggish but vigorous

Polygonum bistorta ‘Superbum’ – will even outcompete bindweed

Stachys lanata has useful flower spikes, plants are easy to remove if necessary

Hesperis matronalis and Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’ self-seed freely, which is useful in May

Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ is delightfully rampant, which is more useful than the blue form