Cart 
As someone who dreams of turning every inch of their garden into a productive space, I started my gardening journey thinking, ‘maybe I don’t have room for flowers’.
But, my childhood love of flowers won me over. As a kid, I dreamed of being a florist. So, I couldn’t help but squeeze flowers into my garden, focusing on ‘useful’ ones – edible and cut flowers — that I could harvest to make my own bouquets.
Once I started planting, the insects started moving in. The elusive ladybirds showed themselves. I spotted my first blue-banded bee. I saw swallowtail butterflies, hover flies, and of course, plenty more bees. The more flowers I planted, the more my garden came to life, and my vegetable patch flourished.
Vegetables love flowers. In fact, I now see growing flowers as important as growing fruit and vegetables in a productive garden.
Observing the vibrant smiling faces of flowers in the garden, dotting edible flowers on my salads, and wrapping bouquets for my friends has radiated so much happiness to my days. But flowers aren’t just good for us, they’re also good for the insect-life too.
Many pollinators visit flowers to gather nectar and pollen for food. As they buzz through their day, they assist us by pollinating veggies, such as cucumbers and zucchini, that need the pollen transfer to produce fruit.
Some flower-loving insects, such as ladybirds, are also beneficial predators who take care of unwanted aphids, becoming your hands off, biological pest control helpers.
So, what flowers can you plant to bring life to your garden?
CUT FLOWERS
Cut flowers are flowers florists like to use — they have long, strong stems which makes them great for bouquets and arrangements.
My favourite cut flower to plant through the cooler seasons are ranunculus. They come in a rainbow of colours, grow from little octopus-looking corms (bulbotubers), and bloom happily in containers. They’re highly generous, giving up to 10-15 flowers per corm. At the end of the season, the corms multiply underground creating more plants for next year.
Poppies, snapdragons and stock are other varieties I love in the garden. All three are lively, compact plants that grow well in narrow garden beds and spaces.
And then there are bulbs: tulips, anemones, jonquils (daffodil’s fragrant cousin) are my top picks. They can be planted closely together, layered in a pot, for a continual seasonal display. This growing method is called a ‘bulb lasagne’ and is a smart way of growing lots of flowers in a smaller space.
EDIBLE FLOWERS
In the edible flower world, it’s the time of the year to pop in pansies and violas. They are small plants that great for filling little empty nooks. I like growing mine in hanging baskets, under fruit trees, or a few grouped together for a burst of colour.
Borage, and its little blue flowers that dance like stars in the wind, are also a mainstay in the garden. As are calendulas whose bright orange petals add a complimentary contrast. Both are annuals, but you only need to plant them once as they happily self-seed in the garden year after year.
