Cut Flowers

This is a very beautiful book and I felt rather pleased to have been offered it for review by netgalley.
Firstly I was horrified to read by Supermarket treat bunch of tulips causes more green house emissions than flowers grown in Africa. This stuck with me as someone who buy seasonal fruit and veg but never considered the harm my bunch of tulips is costing! I don’t use pesticides in my garden and try to buy organic so why wouldn’t I have considered them on my shop bought flowers! The book covers flowers for seasons and how to put together a little posy! I really liked it and will look to buy a hard copy for my own library.

Cut Flowers provides a comprehensive look at choosing, growing, harvesting and arranging annuals, perennials, bulbs, herbs, branches and grasses.. Detailed descriptions of how to grow specific flowers presented season-by-season are helpful, along with advice on whether they can be dried. Appealing photos of flowers and their use are well-chosen to complement the text. Although it is written for those in the warmer UK climate, there is enough valuable information I could use in the colder Wisconsin climate to make it a useful resource.

If you’ve ever thought about submerging your feet in the world of floristry, or have thought about starting your own flower ‘cutting garden,’ do not do either until you’ve skimmed through this book. Everything you need to know about the bones of a bouquet, planning your own cutting garden with attention to seasonality, and the ethics of doing so are right here in these pages. With gorgeous photography to supplement to vast amount of knowledge, it almost feels like an art book as well. One you can proudly display on a coffee table even after you’ve planned your own garden. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up on a page of Magnolia journal as a book to have for the florists-at-hearts, must have, book list.

Thank you goes out to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

As a gardener, I have for many years had cutting gardens in order to make flower arrangements for my home, dry flowers for wreaths, photograph and watercolor paint flowers. I was interested in this book in order to determine if I could find some interesting ideas or facts that contributed to the growing of flowers for cutting or the preparations for and arranging of flowers.

One thing to note is that the flowers and climate conditions are those of Britain and they may be different from the reader’s own. The photos are nice and the flower recommendations for cutting are useful. Preparation for making bouquets are helpful for the novice as well as experienced flower arrangers. The author makes her case for growing your own flowers rather than purchasing greenhouse grown flowers or those shipped from other countries in order to reduce a carbon footprint.

Just a few new things I took away from this book:
Seasonal flowers always look like they belong together.
Not all flowers hydrate and do well in a vase.
The stronger the flower’s scent, the shorter the vase life.
How to use dried twigs and materials in your arrangements.
How to grow colors for each season.