The Cut Flower Sourcebook: Exceptional Perennials and Woody Plants for Cutting

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It will sit next my other best loved plant book, The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Plants & Flowers edited by David Joyce (Ebury Press) which complements it very well. The talk will take place physically at the Garden Museum, London, however there will also be a livestream. The plant suggestions are arranged alphabetically in their relevant sections making them easy to find. In fact, the whole book is easy to navigate and beautifully illustrated by Eva Nemeth, who captures the seasonal diversity and natural ease that are the hallmark of this thoroughly contemporary approach to cut flowers. The Garden Museum presents a talk with Rachel Siegfried in conversation with Clare Foster to celebrate the launch of Rachel's new book – The Cut Flower Sourcebook.

The title of exceptional perennials and woody plants is a high bar to assert on the cover of any flower growing book particularly when using exclusively all British grown flowers and foliage. Like an effortless athlete though who has honed her both skill and craft, Rachel’s sourcebook more than meets the mark. This is such a good investment even for a no-green-fingers person like myself. It's very well set out. Rachel has worked in horticulture for 25 years and has experience in design, landscaping, nursery work and productive horticulture. In 2008, she founded Green and Gorgeous, a flower farm and floral design studio near Wallingford, Oxfordshire.What I can say is currently reading Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury’s book on designing with plants, I can see where Rachel has gleened her philosopy of naturalistic vase arrangements. There is no line to my mind between the garden and floral designs, both of whose “arrangements” are inspired by the natural world. What Rachel also understands is the need for different key floral ingredients to be available at any given seasonal moment. Both views on the specific design elements and then the advice given for creating the achingly beautiful and British aesthetic that is recognisably Rachel is both honest and heart warming. I can attest to the quality and hardiness of Taylors Clematis. You plant in hope rather than anticipation of resilience and are resoundingly and reassuringly proved to land on hope. My belief in garden-grown cut flowers has been severely tested over the years. The vagaries of our weather, an army of pests, and high expectations from customers have certainly put my plant choices through their paces. I discovered that it was the perennials and shrubs I knew best from my work as a garden designer that met the practical challenges of growing for market. These stalwarts have also played a central role in developing my natural floral style as I moved from garden designer to flower farmer and florist.

Rachel has worked in horticulture for 25 years and so her experience is more than valuable. At her flower farm, she and her partner Ashley Pearson, grow hundreds of varieties, carefully selected for their cut-flower credentials.Growing your own flowers for cutting brings the pleasure of the season indoors and cuts out the air miles associated with many shop-bought flowers. In ‘The Cut Flower Sourcebook – Exceptional perennials and woody plants for cutting’ Rachel Siegfried identifies the best perennials and woody plants to grow for cutting.

If you're a budding florist or even just (like me) a homemaker who likes occasionally to do a flower arrangement, there's plenty of excellent advice. It would be great as a coffee table book too! A shelter belt of fast growing wood cuts is what many of us desire as well as need with flower farms that grow in less than perfect conditions, i.e. all of them. I am essentially a plant addict looking for an excuse to buy more plants,” declares Rachel. The florist farmer of Green and Gorgeous is brutally honest and always supportive with her extensive lists and suggestions for “cultivating natural ease .” Rachel Siegfried, The Cut Flower Sourcebook And while we don’t all grow on to quote Rachel “beautiful silty loam, rich and almost stone free” that had her tempted to sign on the dotted line immediately after years of Cotswold brash, she does offer solutions to other situations. Trees and shrubs are the foundation of our planting on the flower farm,” says Rachel. They act as a structural foil for the flowers, in a parallel role to the one that these “woody cuts” play in an arrangement. They are also vital for shelter, along with cutting hedges. “One of your first jobs will be to establish the direction of the most damaging winds and plan a shelter belt for fast-growing woody cuts to protect your planting,” she advises. Deciduous trees and shrubs planted as hedges have an advantage over evergreens because of their blossom, autumn color and berries. Native crab apple, Rosa glauca, Viburnum opulus, native spindle and hawthorn all grow on the farm. Above: Climbers are trained against reinforced steel mesh at Green and Gorgeous Flowers, Oxfordshire. Photograph by Eva Németh.

April 4th 2023

For florists, the floral arrangements are a master class in textured combinations of colour and shape and scale. Excellent advice is given on the all important care required to achieve optimal conditioning. With the range of seasons’ we experience in this country (UK) it is ideal to know which perennials and shrubs Rachel ( pictured right) has discovered through her own particular challenges growing for the flower market. As she says in the introduction: “ These stalwarts have also played a central role in developing my natural floral style as I moved from garden designer to flower farmer and florist.” Rachel is foremost a grower with formidable flair for colour, and gives great advice on choosing a muse from your garden for your floral designs.

The author makes a great case for seeing the cut flower potential of existing perennials and planting more perennials in beds as you would annuals. Annuals do use up way too many resources, including your time!, when there are so many longer lived alternatives. So I'm sold. Following that, there isn't a bevy of really unique information here. Beautiful photos though. Growing flowers for cutting brings the pleasures of the season indoors and cuts out the air miles associated with many shop-bought blooms. This book turns the spotlight on the best perennials and woody plants which return year after year with little effort or waste, offer valuable habitats to garden wildlife and bring a natural quality to arrangements. The Cut Flower Sourcebook lives up to its promise, offering invaluable advice for anyone beginning to grow their own plants for cutting, as well as prospective flower farmers. The author, Rachel Siegfried, is a grower and florist who uses the seasons’ parameters as a spur to creativity. With her partner Ashley Pearson, she started Green and Gorgeous Flowers in Oxfordshire, England, 15 years ago, doing innovative (yet quite traditional) things like selling at the farm gate on Saturday mornings. Now there are many more competitors, but hers is the cool, level-headed voice, demonstrating that beauty can also be found in slow-growing and permanent plants, reducing work and environmental damage. Above: Rachel Siegfried making full use of crab apple trees in blossom. Photograph by Rachel Siegfried.Rachel, from Green & Gorgeous is well known and respected in British cut flower growing circles and I had the pleasure of spending a day with many years ago at her flower farm in Oxfordshire. Step by step guide to making floral arrangements, with all aspects of the composition discussed and illustrated. Over the last few evenings I have had the pleasure of reading “The Cut Flower Sourcebook – Exceptional Perennials & Woody Plants For Cutting” by Rachel Siegfried. A supremely practical, dirt-under-the-fingernails seasonal guide based on long years of experience, Siegfried’s new book highlights 128 resilient, floriferous, long-lived species. This book turns the spotlight on perennials and woody plants which return year after year with little effort or waste, offer valuable habitats to garden wildlife, and also bring a more natural quality to arrangements.