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If you’ve ever been seduced by thoughts of growing flowers in pots or in your garden, yet needed guidance on where to begin and what to plant, Create Academy’s course A Year of Cut Flowers, taught by Henrietta Courtauld and Bridget Elworthy of the Land Gardeners, is a wonderful place to start.
Fueled by a shared passion for healthy soil and cultivating flowers, Henrietta and Bridget have created a very successful cut-flower business, renowned for its stunning arrangements and its responsible stewardship of the land. Through a series of videos shot in Provence and Cornwall, we get to learn amazing tips about the best flowers to grow for picking and the best ways to care for our gardens, starting with soil health – the key to successful organic gardening.
I have just finished the course and the ending was bitter-sweet for me, as I wished for it to last forever. A Year of Cut Flowers is binge-worthy and jam-packed with gardening tips and best practices, set on a backdrop of stunning imagery shot in The Land Gardeners’ studio and gardens in the south of France. Designed with seasonal succession in mind, the course takes us through a year of planning, planting, caring for, and eventually picking from our gardens, starting with the frenzy of spring.
We learn all about good soil practices and the most rewarding flowering plants to grow- easy growers, low maintenance plants and flowers that are long-lasting in arrangements. The course is designed for anyone interested in growing flowers, whether a novice or an experienced gardener, with plots big or small, or none at all. In fact, the knowledge can be applied to indoor and container gardening just as well as to gardening on a large scale.
The topics covered include: great perennial plants to grow in the garden, biennials that self-seed profusely, and, of course, annuals that – although short-lived – are reliable and repeat bloomers throughout the season. We get to hear all about planting bulbs, collecting fresh seed, caring for, moving and dividing peonies, roses, dahlias, cosmos, hydrangeas, fruit trees and shrubs, and so much more.
Without a doubt, gardening has its many perks and health benefits, not the least of which the ability to cultivate the foods we love and the flowers we most enjoy picking. There’s something incredibly satisfying about being able to go outside and pluck a fruit or gather a handsome bunch of flowers to bring indoors. While humbling in its fanciful ways, nature and gardening also give us a sense of control, the power to be protective of our environment. When we garden, we create habitats for wildlife, small pockets of magic that brim with life, are rich in color, heavenly scented and filled with birdsong and buzzing with activity. In this way, gardening is its own reward.
To learn all about growing flowers with The Land Gardeners, Cafe Design readers receive a 15% discount on all Create Academy classes, using the promo code cadedesign15 at checkout. Happy learning!
A Year of Cut Flowers with The Land Gardeners
To find out more about The Land Gardeners and their mission, make sure to check out their website and portfolio HERE, as well as Henrietta and Bridget’s first book, linked below:
For more Create Academy course reviews, make sure to check out the following Cafe Design stories:
Learn Modern Upholstery with Micaela Sharp & Create Academy
Learn All About Pigments, Paints and Palettes with Edward Bulmer & Create Academy
Since this all takes place in England, I am guessing that what grows well there, might not grow as well in all climates/conditions. Did you feel that this is worth it for someone living in Massachusetts?
Author
Hi Patricia, great question! In my opinion, the class is well worth its price, regardless of US agricultural zones. The information & extensive list of plants can be adapted, with some obvious tweaks, to have a hard-working cut flower garden year round, regardless of the climate in your area. (We live in Massachusetts, too, and I found everything to be applicable. ) An example of a tweak would be southern California, where dahlias can be considered perennials (the tubers don’t need to be dug up to flower the next year, though digging them up and dividing them encourages next year’s growth – something I’ve learned in this class.) Henrietta and Bridget also talk about peonies, how to divide & move them successfully, and how they need a hard frost to do well in the garden (we have plenty of those in Massachusetts, sadly 🙂 )
Hope this helps!
xo, Eva