Just Grow the Flowers: Spring / Summer

A step-by-step guide to growing cut flowers from spring right through to the first frost, even if you only have ten minutes here and there.

Written by a grower with a full-time job, a family and an ordinary garden, not a flower farm. I've been growing from seed for seven years, and what I couldn't find was someone growing on a normal garden scale, so that's what this guide is.

Spring is when most people sow everything at once and end up overwhelmed. This guide spreads it out: one flower a week, from early February to late April, so it never feels like a second job.

Inside you'll find:

• Seventeen flowers for summer cutting and drying, from cosmos, zinnias and snapdragons to statice, strawflower and dahlias, with a week-by-week sowing schedule
• Varieties to look for with every flower, including my must-have cosmos
• A kit list, including the one piece of kit I'd buy for spring (a heat mat with a thermostat), and what you can skip
• Seedling care, planting out, support, and which flowers to pinch
• A full dahlia section, from waking tubers in March to lifting them after the first frost
• Cutting, drying and saving seed for next year
• A one-page cheat sheet with sowing dates, germination needs, heights and flowering times for every flower
• Zone notes and a "weeks before last frost" column for the US and Canada (UK dates are written for my Suffolk garden)

Want the whole year? Together, the two guides take you all the way round the year. Get both in The Whole Year Bundle for £15.99 and save £4.