Sunflowers in the cutting garden

After last week’s doom and gloom I thought we might go for a spot of colour today.  Sunflowers galore.

This is my favourite type of forest.

I sowed these a few years ago, and now just let the birds so the work in scattering the seed in autumn.

They pop up everywhere. And luckily they grow nice and high and don’t get in the way of my dwarf French beans below.

In fact they create a bit of welcome shade in my hot parched potager.

Right now the bees are hard at work collecting pollen. But I do have enough to nab for flower arranging.

I had a bit of help this month with some willing novice flower arrangers.  I cut the plants very early in the morning and plonked them in very deep buckets of water to stop them wilting.

With such stiff thick stems, they are thirsty critters.  In fact you can’t hope for more than a week in the vase right now.

But what a pleasing sight when you turn up at our front door.

Even better when I sneak the yellow achillea flowers in between the blooms. It saves me having to yank out the entire vase of faded beauties after too short a time on display.