Having a ‘grow’ at our own flowers
May 14th, 2007 by Jenny
Wedding planning went on hold during the recent stint of summery weather. I was busy planting things at the allotment, and also barbecuing in the garden with all our friends! After all, planning a wedding is much more fun if you sometimes get a breather, isn’t it?
But now the rain has come to water all the new plants in, Phil and I are back at the computer. Phil is designing our invitations. Thanks to a suggestion from Becca on the forum, we decided to make an online invitation, on our wedding’s own website, which we could direct people to by email. The only printing we plan to do is for the two or three guests we have who do not have internet access.
And while he is battling with the setting up of the website, I am working out how to fill our hall with plants.
We would like to grow our wedding flowers (or as many of them as possible) but I have only ever really grown veggies and herbs in the past and am not too familiar with growing flowers – not only that but March is a little early for most flowers and I am a bit concerned that if we have a cold winter, not many flowers will be ready!
However, I will definitiely be giving it a go. I have been looking at which lovely spring flowers will be coming into bloom in the UK in mid March and I have found a handy table that shows many plants flowering at that time – but I’m also thinking of a visit to my friend Stacey, who works in the local garden centre and might be able to advise me, or to Margaret my mother-in-law-to-be, who works as a horticultural therapist. I am concerned about unwittingly trying to grow difficult things that won’t come up, but I think Stacey or Margaret will know straight away what to grow.
We are thinking of crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils and maybe aubretia. There are lots of others, too many to list here – I just need to find out which will be easiest. I would like to grow them in pots, but will therefore also need to find a large quantity of very cheap pots that will look pretty enough for table decorations and stage decorations, but will be reusable or recyclable.
If anyone has ideas on this I’d love to hear them! In the mean time I am off to have a look at Phil’s latest invitation design…
Jenny
Hi Jenny
Why not try Freecycle too see if anyone has flower pots they could gift to you?
Good luck!
Thanks Vicky, that’s a really good idea. I’ll give it some thought… if I asked for pots of a particular colour, then I would maybe not get a totally random assortment, which would be better still I think. I am planning to put some plants on freecycle next week, so perhaps I will put a ‘wanted’ note on as well!
Jenny
I love the idea of growing your own flowers! I hope it works out
A great idea to grow your own flowers – I recommend you take a look at Sarah Raven’s Cutting Garden Book – it’s extremely informative and gives you plenty of ideas – I’m thumbing through regularly to get ideas for my wedding. Also a good tip, try to grow plenty of foliage! Good luck!
I grow flowers for a living and find I get commissioned to do a lot more weddings nowadays. If you want any help do contact me – I think the more people we get growing things the better. I also have a weblog that gives tips – can’t post the url here or it gets bounced,
J
Ed: Here is Snapdragon’s blog – sorry, the bounce is automatic! – http://www.snapdragongarden.blogspot.com/