Your ultimate cut flower guide

Bring the garden into your home with Louise Curley's guide to growing, cutting and arranging homegrown flowers. In this first of a two-part series, she looks at what to snip in the garden, how to condition stems and the best dahlias for the vase

Louise Curley is the author of the award-winning book The Cut Flower Patch. She writes about gardens, nature, and wellbeing, and is currently creating a new garden at her home in West Yorkshire.

Filling your home with freshly picked flowers that you've grown brings just as much pleasure as digging up potatoes or harvesting some peas. At the same time, you're reducing your carbon footprint, as many shop-bought blooms have been grown abroad. In this two-part guide, I'll share tips and tricks on conditioning your flowers so that they last for as long as possible, how to arrange them in a variety of different vessels, the best plants to grow for picking, and how you can start your own productive flower patch.

How to condition stems

It takes time and effort to nurture plants to the point where they flower, so it's important to cut and condition them carefully so that they look good for as long as possible. Pick stems when it's cool, using sharp, clean secateurs to prevent damage to stems and to avoid the build-up of bacteria, which will shorten their vase life. Once picked, conditioning can be the difference between flowers that wilt within a day and those that last more than a week.

When to cut