A festival of Flowers

by Mara | Jul 22, 2024 | Fauna & Flora, In the Garden

This article was first published in Sanctuary Magazine Issue 67

Words and photography: Mara Ripani

There’s nothing lovelier than a bouquet of blooms, except perhaps one picked fresh from your own garden. Expert gardenerMara Ripani sings the praises of good old-fashioned flowers and offers her top tips on how to grow them, preserve them and use them.

Once, suburban gardens full of flowers were commonplace, but with the increasing density of our cities, shrinking outdoor spaces, and garden design trends shifting to favour lawns and low-maintenance trees and shrubs, flower growing seems to be fading.

Why grow flowers?

It’s easy to take flowers for granted, or think of them as frivolous beauty. But think again, for flowers of all types are an important food source for bees and other pollinators as well as many birds and other wildlife. Beekeepers in urban areas rely on the tapestry of urban flower gardens to keep their bees well fed and producing honey. Growing flowers is an easy way to increase the biodiversity in our cities, and their beauty brings joy – which is a precious thing! In addition, flowers are expensive to buy but generally easy and cheap to grow, and make wonderful decorations and gifts.

Anyone with access to a garden, a nature strip or even a balcony can celebrate those spaces with flowers.

I use flowers to celebrate the people we love and to say thank you. Dahlias and Zinnias grown here at ORTO.

What to grow

There are so many choices for flowers, both native and exotic. If you have a larger garden, you can grow a wide variety in the form of flowering trees, shrubs, annuals, and herbaceous and woody perennials to provide beauty and food for wildlife all year round. Trees include corymbia, angophora, magnolias, lilacs, banksias, fruit trees and any number of eucalypt species. Great flowering shrubs include grevilleas, buddleia, callistemons, tea trees, westringia (native rosemary), honey and crepe myrtles, Californian tree poppies and wax flowers. There are also small perennials such as achillea and echinacea, and annuals such as zinnias and marigolds, to name just a few.

For smaller gardens, try golden and winged everlastings, flannel flowers, pig face, yellow buttons, billy buttons, blue devils, sunflowers, lavender, roses, dahlias, salvias, verbena, calendulas, eryngiums, agastache, echinops, foxgloves, cosmos… the list is almost endless. As always, a good place to start is at your local nursery, where the staff will be able to advise you on options suitable for your local climate.

Sunflowers are easy to grow. Sow seed and keep it moist until germination.

How to grow them

Most plants like good free-draining soil, and the above trees and flowers are no exception, so work your soil well to loosen it up before planting. If it’s in poor condition with low levels of organic matter, work a native-suitable or close-to-neutral-pH compost through the soil. Making a hole twice the width and depth of the tree roots or seedling roots you are planting also greatly improves soil oxygenation and drainage.

Plan and plant flowering trees, shrubs and perennials as part of your longer-term garden design (for more on caring for herbaceous perennials, read my article ‘Plants that keep on giving’ in Sanctuary 61). When it comes to growing flowers, it’s annuals that require the most hands-on cultivation. Though you can buy some varieties as seedlings, for the most satisfying results I recommend you purchase seeds from your local nursery and sow them in trays – these are often given away by nurseries.

Fill the tray to the top with a seed raising mix, water in well, then create channels the depth and width of the seed. Drop seed in, cover and press down lightly before watering again. If you sow in late winter and keep the trays indoors in a warm place with access to the sun, you will have seedlings ready to plant in spring. (Use a planting calendar for your climate zone or the information on your seed packet to determine optimum seed sowing times for specific flowers.)

I use flowers in my classes to share their beauty with others.

In spring, ‘harden off’ your seedlings by putting them in a protected spot outside for two weeks to acclimatise, before planting them into your garden. Always water in very well and keep moist for a few weeks as they establish longer and stronger roots.

Most flower seeds can also be planted directly into soil in spring, but as many flower seeds are very small, sowing them in trays and placing those trays in a protected environment will increase germination success.

On the other hand, flowers that grow from tubers such as dahlias, or from bulbs such as daffodils and tulips, or from corms such as gladioli, do very well when sown directly into soil. If you have never seen any of the above three, then expect tubers to look a little bit like funny shaped potatoes, while bulbs and corms look a little bit like small to medium onions.

Salads, or a pasta dish, or to top off a drink, edible flowers create a great deal of beauty, meaningful beauty that brings joy.

A little research will also tell you that tubers, corms and bulbs are vegetatively different but what they share is the ability to store enough energy for germination to occur, with little input on your part, when conditions are favourable. And the very best thing about tubers, corms and bulbs is that once they have been sown, they need not be sown again. Year after year they will produce beautiful flowers!

There will come a time when they will have been so productive that they will run out of room in your garden and will need to be dug up and separated and spread to other parts of the garden or shared with neighbours and friends. This is because overcrowding can reduce flowering. The other reason to dig them up is if you have waterlogged soils. In such cases they need to be stored in a moist dark environment such as a tub of mildly wet sawdust.

Roses, zinnias and dahlias being air dried during warm summer days to be used on cold grey winter days.

How to care for them

Once your flowering plants are established, water as needed by observing their performance and growth. Don’t take the ‘if it’s meant to grow, it will’ approach! Look after your plants if you want them to succeed.

If you are often away from home and find it hard to keep soil moist, consider purchasing or making wicking beds to help you manage soil moisture. Alternatively, add lots of compost and mulch heavily with straw once seedlings have established. Protect your seedlings with old plastic bottles opened at both ends if slugs and snails are prevalent.

Roses in the David Austin range air drying.

Dead-head spent flowers as soon as you see them to encourage multiple flowerings; that way both you and the pollinators will get the maximum out of your plants.

Don’t use herbicides or pesticides. Accept imperfections and grow flowers chemical-free to protect soil and waterways. Take pride in growing flowers that can be safely used in teas or meals.

How to use your flowers

Take some and leave some behind: use the flowers you grow as food for pollinators, for beauty in your garden, and as cut flowers for a range of purposes. The best thing about flowers is that they are loved by pretty much everyone, and if unencumbered by plastic wrapping, ties and other bits and pieces, they make a very beautiful and biodegradable gift.

My beautiful daughter with a harvest of flowers from the garden.

Petals from edible flowers such as lavender, dahlias, marigolds, calendulas, and roses can be dried and used in tea blends. Alternatively, use them fresh in salads, in pasta dough to colour it, in sushi and rice paper rolls, or to decorate biscuits and cakes.

Use cut flowers or flowering tree stems to decorate a table for a special meal such as a birthday, or just because you feel like it. Get creative and circle a dinner plate with flowers to let someone know you love them. Hang flowers from the ceiling on string lines, so they provide decoration as they dry.

Saying good bey and thank you to a visiting volunteer; summer harvest.

How to dry flowers

In summer, most flowers air-dry quite well at room temperature if placed in a ventilated area. Always spread them on a perforated tray or on cardboard propped up so that air can move below as well as over them. You can also use a dehydrator if you have one.

Once the flowers are crispy dry, they can be stored in jars for later use – and as a bonus, the flower-filled jars are decorative themselves. (Sometimes the flowers will feel dry only to soften in the jar; if this happens, dry them again to eliminate the potential for mould).

Thank you breakfast for visiting Permaculture Students.

In summary

With good soil, growing flowers is easy and very affordable. They provide essential food for pollinators that in turn pollinate vegetable and fruit flowers to produce food for us. They create beauty in our gardens and in our homes and make timeless, gorgeous gifts for the people we love. I encourage you to get growing!