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My mother and grandmother were both keen gardeners and, although my granny was more indulgent with me, neither wanted me to pick flowers for the house as it would 鈥渞ob鈥� the garden.

They both love(d) flowers in the house so florists鈥� deliveries for special occasions were always enthusiastically welcomed. At 96, my ma鈥檚 gardening is now limited by physical frailty 鈥� 鈥淚 could get down but I couldn鈥檛 get up,鈥� she says ruefully.

However, a trip to the nursery or garden centre is still a treat and she buys things for others to plant for her. She is now The Director. She and I have very different tastes 鈥� she likes to see bare, turned earth between the plants and is a big fan of contrasting colours. 

I have a somewhat looser style (she might think messier). I see bare earth as an invitation to plant more. I love full beds, less space for weeds. I choose more subtle colours generally.

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And I still love picking flowers for the house but I am mindful about their exhortations and try to take care not to deplete the floral show. That means I do not cut the biggest and best blooms. 

The solution is a Cutting Patch where everything is grown for the purpose of being harvested to fill my vases.

What is a Cutting Patch?

Cutting Patches are really easy to do even if you do not have a garden as you can use containers. They cost very little to start. 

Many annual flowers will grow in poor soil 鈥� things like zinnias and cosmos often flower better if the soil is not rich. If you have space in your vegetable garden, put in a few rows of flower seeds, just as if you were sowing carrots. Make a drill and sow thinly. Cover lightly and water.

You can be even more relaxed about it. Lay some cardboard over an area of lawn in a sunny spot. Water it well. Cover with the soil from your winter pots, adding more garden soil and compost to a depth of 10cm. You can edge with logs or stones if you like. 

Scatter with a tub of mixed annual seeds, lightly raking them in. Water with a fine spray. And then leave it to itself. Unless you get a very hot dry spell immediately after sowing you should not need to water again. When the flowers come, keep picking, all the time.

Flowers to last almost all year

The flowers in annual seed mixes are easy and profuse but sometimes they do not last long in the vase 鈥� lovely but fleeting. You can put in a bit more effort and with some care create a Cutting Patch which will give you flowers almost year round. You will need more space, time and money.

Any shrubs and perennials will need better soil preparation 鈥� mark out a bed, remove turf and weeds and dig it over incorporating some compost or well-rotted manure if you are going to include roses and peonies particularly.

Not many people immediately think of roses and other shrubs when considering a Cutting patch but, in my opinion, they are invaluable. If you have inherited a rose in the 鈥榳rong鈥� colour or in an inappropriate place, you can move it to your Cutting Patch 鈥� April is not the best month for this so wait until the colder months. You can plant containerised roses from the nursery though or take cuttings from your favourite bushes. Train shoots downwards to encourage long flowering stems on old shrub roses.

Unlike in the garden, you can cut whole clusters of blooms for opulently filled vases. Lilac cuttings root easily so you can plant some and virtually pollard them for blooms every spring. Line out summer bulbs now and plant spring bulbs next autumn. Do not forget anemones and ranunculus corms and wallflowers too. 

Put in rows of dahlias and chrysanthemums. Consider plug plants of tender perennials if you live in milder areas 鈥� with a good mulch they might survive the winter.

The metallic sheen of Arctotis, sometimes sold as Venidium, is a great addition. The colours are intense and you can choose rich copper daisies contrasted against the silvered foliage. Tall multi-stemmed Helianthus debilis Italian white sunflowers will give you masses of dark centred flowers from yellow, through cream to almost white. If you sow now you can get flowers, otherwise buy plugs.

Read also: Edible flowers in France: Pansies for the plate is a growing market

Chocolate Cosmos, unlike its annual cousins, is a tender perennial rather than annual and, with protection, should flower every year. The flowers last much longer in the vase too. Sold as summer bedding plugs, they can thrive in your Cutting Patch, producing far more flowers if you continually harvest them.

Heliopsis has good strong stems for cutting and Luna Roja (Red Moon) is a rich fiery colour. If you want tall spires, sow annual lupins, in rows, like sowing peas 鈥� about 2cm between the seeds.

Read also: Get involved and join a local gardening club in France

Sweetpeas, beloved of allotment gardeners for cut flowers, are best sown in autumn in France, especially if you live in the southern half. April is usually too late, it gets too hot too quickly to give a decent crop most years. If you do grow them, use pea netting and run the stems along the ground for a few centimetres before tying into the mesh. Keep watered to have the best chance of success.

The best thing about a Cutting Patch is that you can choose the biggest and the best without feeling guilty and you must keep picking to get the best out of it!