I read a post on Pickin’ Petals Flower Farm blog which offered suggestions for THE TOP FIVE FLOWERS to grow if you want to start a cutting garden. Now Pickin’ Petals is based in Kentucky USA which is a couple of states south and west of New York State. (Think midway between the Great Lakes and Florida) The climate in Kentucky is very different to ours here in the UK and so it follows that their easy flowers are very different to ours too. It got me thinking… which flowers would I suggest for gardeners in the UK? I have already listed my BEST HARDY ANNUALS in a previous post. So here are my recommendations for the Top Five Flowers to grow in the UK for autumn blooms.
- Dahlias
- Scabious
- Cosmos
- Rudbeckia
- Asters
There are many other lovely things to see in the garden in late summer and autumn but these are five of my favourites.
Which are your favourite flowers at this time of year?
Happy Gardening Gillian 🙂
stunning pics…yes, I love dahlias, asters, rudbeckia too but also helianthus lemon queen and all my flowering grasses. happy autumn days to you 🙂
Thank you very much. Oooh Yes Annette! You are quite right about the beautiful yellow flowers and grasses.
Lucky you still enjoying annual cosmos, mine have keeled over, I guess it’s the low overnight temperatures. Mind you, I’d add chocolate cosmos to my list of favourites, it is still going strong and picks well too.
We are expecting low temperatures here any day now but it is still quite mild. I’ve never grown Chocolate Cosmos. I imagine that it looks beautiful with all your grasses Kate.
I would certainly agree with Rudbeckia and Aster, but Scabious and Cosmos are pretty well over here and Dahlias never do well in my garden because of the slugs. So I would add instead Autumn flowering Gentian, Fuschia and Persicaria. All are still flowering well.
Hi Annette and thanks for your suggestions. I grow a couple of fuschias (in containers) but not Gentians or Persicarias. My wish list is growing!
I can’t argue with your list. I haven’t grown scabious this year, but have a new plant in the border for next year, and some seeds from Sarah Raven.
Lovely Noelle. It’s great to be thinking about next years blooms already. Scabious are magical… quite slow to get going and then they surprise you with fast growth and lots of flowers.
A perfect list! I don’t have all of these, but most. I’m a little heavy on the dahlias and rudbeckia. Would you consider Japanese Anenome here? They are still going very strong in my October perennial garden and we have the same climate as most parts of the U.K. I’m in zone 7 here in Portland, OR.
Yes Susan. Anemones definitely fit the bill and they are still going strong here too.
Gillian I love the dahlias! But ,I will have to look up the helianthus lemon queen that Annette mentions! It sounds very interesting!
I love Dahlias Cady.
Lovely photos of your favourites! I can’t grow Rudbeckia or Dahlias as the slugs always devour them when they are small. I grew Dahlias in pots with copper tape around them last year, but I think they do better in the ground. I would therefore add Verbena rigida, which has seeded itself around here and is still flowering beautifully. And my dwarf Miscanthus – I just adore that! 🙂
We have lots of wild ducks and a hedgehog or two visiting our garden so the slug population never really gets out of control. Verbena rigida is lovely… that’s another one for my list!
I have nominated you for the Liebster Award! If you choose to accept it, details can be found here – http://www.newheartnewbeginnings.com I love reading your posts
Lynne
Thanks Lynne.
A good choice for autumn picking. Grasses are good right now for vases too, specially miscanthus and pennisetum.
Thanks very much! I do grow a few grasses but hardly ever pick them for the house. I should make more use of them as they most definitely look great now.
lots of buds on my Scabiosa.
For picking my garden is exploding with pelargoniums!
Wonderful Diana. It’s fantastic to have such beautiful plants isn’t it?
Your list would work here in New England as well. Your photos are lovely!
Thanks very much Eliza. I am constantly surprised how similar some of our UK gardens are to parts of the USA.
I’m curious, does the UK have standardized plant zones like the US? Do you have a link of a map to share? I’m in zone 5, which is rated to -20F and frost free mid-May to mid-Sept. see here: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html
Not as far as I know Eliza. I think it’s because we are such a small country that there is not a great deal of difference in climate around the UK. The best info I know of is produced by our Met Office. We are in the Temperate Zone which is dark green on their map. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-guide/climate/zones
What are your coldest winter temps?
Here by the coast in West Lancashire North West England we benefit from the warming effects of the Gulf Stream so our winters are not usually too cold. An early morning frost or a flurry of snow and -2C or -3C is probably about the worst it gets most winters. I can leave some tender plants in patio pots right next to the house all winter and they survive from year to year. In East Lancashire which has the Pennines (Hills known as the Backbone of England) winters are much colder and more difficult for both plants and humans!
We’ve already had -3C with a lot worse to come. I envy those with mild winters. 🙂
Some journalists are already predicting an exceptionally harsh winter here… but then again they said that last year too!
Regardless of predictions, we get what we get, right? Here, I can count on lots of snow and cold! ;-D