Hi all,
IŽm new to flower gardening (apart from companions for my veggies like callendula and such!!) I have offered to grow some red and yellow flowers (Spain colours!) for a friends wedding. Any advice on what would make good wedding flowers?
Thanks in advance for helping a clueless novice flower gardener :-))) I need to get sowing quick, the wedding is in June!
Wedding Flowers
Roses would be my first obvious suggestion (although I don't recommend starting them from seed for a wedding in June, definitely better off buying them already grown!)
Other than that, unless someone else has suggestions, I would recommend doing an advanced search in Plant Files, there you can pick flower color, fragrant flowers, and bloom time that matches when the wedding is going to be and get a number of suggestions. If you're going to start things from seed, annuals are probably a better bet than perennials since they tend to have longer bloom periods and also many perennials won't bloom their first year from seed, so they wouldn't do you any good. If you run across perennials that you like, you could always buy plants that are a year or two old and they should bloom this year.
It's really sweet of you to want to do this for your friend, but I'm afraid it could be a bit stressful for you especially since you say you're new to flower gardening. There are all sorts of things that can happen in between sowing the seeds and having the plant bloom, and of course there's always the trick of making sure the plants are in full bloom at the right time exactly for the wedding. Is there a backup plan of somewhere you can get flowers if something goes wrong or the plants haven't decided to start blooming yet?
Thanks for the reply ecrane3. Your plant file search is a great idea! I'm not ging to use the flowers as cut flowers, I'll make up some potswhich I'll decorate and my friend can give them to guests at the end of the wedding, better alive anyway! last longer! therefore the plants/flowers shouldnt be too tall. Anymore tips out there??
Like ecrane said, you need to have a back up plan because even well behaved plants wont bloom on demand! June is a great time to find annuals in bloom at local nurseries so on May 30th when you are pulling your hair out just keep that in mind.
Look close at seed directions to see how many days to bloom. Some plants take much longer than others.
Plants that come to mind that stay small(ish) and are good for pots:
Heliotrope
Rainmaster Petunia
Balcony Petunia
Phlox
Dianthus
Sweet Scabious
Verbena
fragrant Violas
Violets
Fragrant Spices Basil, thyme, Lavender,etc...
Freesia bulbs
forced Hyacinth bulbs
Thanks for helping out! I think IŽll try my best and grow lots in pots and then If I dont have enough in bloom IŽll hop down to the garden centre!! Thanks again! off to plant files!