Ten ‘must grow’ fillers and foliage
One thing you can be sure of as a flower farmer is you never have enough foliage for your bouquets. Woody perennials aside, these are our ten ‘must grow’ filler and foliage plants. I’ve included fillers as well as foliage, because they’re what we often have to resort to when we just don’t have enough of the green stuff.
Achillea / Yarrow
Easy to grow.
Cut and come again.
Comes in a range of colours including white, mauve, peach, purple and yellow.
Long vase life, and can be dried.
A perennial that can be cut back to grow again the following year.
But
Can look a bit ‘blah’ - but I’ve learned to love it.
Chinese forget me nots
Easy to grow.
Cut and come again.
But
Bright blue flowers can be hard to mix with some colours.
Hylotelephium / Sedum
Requires very little care.
Lasts for weeks in a vase.
Flowers later in summer and for ages, I think from August through to October.
If you cut them back before the stalks get too big and unwieldy, you’ll get a second flush.
But
Unless you opt for the Sedum Hylotelephium Autumn Joy variety that grows to 40-50cm – a lot of the other varieties are quite short.
If you don’t cut it when the stems are thin, they can grow too thick to use in bouquets.
You really need to pick it before it flowers and the bees get on it.
Limonium / Statice
So much like Achillea, with all the same advantages and disadvantages above, I often get them confused.
Persian Cress
Fast growing, airy greenery.
Grows right up until the frosts.
Good vase life of around 10 days.
But
You have to support with netting or stakes.
Mint
Fast growing and prolific – plant out in May and you’ll have foliage you can pick three months later in August.
Gives bouquets a lovely fresh scent.
Apple mint seems to grow fastest and tallest, and is most prolific.
But
Many people worry about mint spreading, but as I’m always cutting it, I haven’t found this an issue.
Pineapple mint is a beautiful variegated variety, but can be too short and floppy.
Monarda / Bee balm
Interesting flower and also great as foliage before the flower blooms.
Very attractive to honeybees, bumble bees, hawk moths, butterflies and predatory wasps.
A perennial that will come back year after year.
But
The leaves can go brown and straggly before the flowers form - we often use it as foliage before it flowers.
Phalecia
Easy to grow – technically a green manure cover crop.
A hardy annual you can sow in March to September to get flowers 6-8 weeks later.
Unusual, hairy flowers that curl over like a caterpillar.
Sweetly scented.
Very attractive to honey bees, bumblebees and hover flies
But
Self seeds very easily.
For green manure, you need to cut and dig it in before it flowers.
Rosemary
Lovely smell.
Lasts exceptionally long in a vase.
It’s still around at Christmas.
A perennial evergreen herb.
But
Needs full sun and good drainage, or it will die.
Scabious stellata / Sternkugel
Grown for its seedheads rather than its flowers.
Looks the same fresh or dried, so you can dry and hold a supply of it.
But
Nothing bad to say about Scabiosa Stellata.
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