My dining table and numerous coffee tables, shelves and window ledges around the house are never without homemade, rustic floral centre pieces – at least in spring and summer.

I love cut flowers in the house (especially scented ones) and there is something especially satisfying and ‘earth mother-y’ about cutting those that you have grown by your own fair hand.

Although there are cut flower seed mixes on the market, realistically any flower can be cut for the house with the only limit being your imagination (and their shelf life!) but here are a few of my top picks.

My favourite summer cut flowers are lillies.

The long-lasting blooms fill the house with a deliciously sweet scent especially those of Lillium regale.

Plant them in a sunny spot in the spring for best results.

Enrich the soil with well rotted garden compost or leaf mould and plant the bulbs at a depth of 15-20cm.

Lathyrus odoratus (sweet peas) are a cut flower cottage garden favourite.

They have lovely long stems which makes them great candidates for life in a vase.

For me, their scent is evocative of childhood summers – we grew them on netting on the south west facing wall of the garage.

A wedding bouquet favourite, baby’s breath makes a great addition to the cutting garden. I particularly love Gypsophila Festival Star which produces frothy white flowers from the end of May until the end of September. It looks great fresh or dried.

Astrantias are a reliable yet understated choice for the cutting garden and the little pin cushion like flowers come in greenish white, blush pink and deep burgundy.

Tulips are an obvious but still lovely choice for cutting.

They last up to a week in a vase and are attractive on their own or as part of an arrangement. Echinaceas are given quite a bit of space in my garden and in my flower arrangements.

They are well know for being attractive to bees and butterflies but they are also attractive to me!

I especially love the double flowers of Echinacea purpurea Pink Double Delight.

If you have the space you can dedicate an area of the garden purely for growing cut flowers – aka a cutting garden.

But I prefer to add flowers for cutting to existing borders because it allows you to pick what you want without plundering the entire border and ruining its overall appearance.

Remember to plant species in large groups to give you plenty of stock and use bulbs such as Tulips, Daffodils, Alliums and Gladioli to extend the season.

Most cut flowers thrive in full sun and will need lots of love and care to get the best from them.

This means a generous mulch of organic matter and applications of fertilisers if and when they require as well as watering in dry spells.

Regular cutting (and deadheading for those left behind) will encourage the production of more flowers and keep the floral flow running.

Happy gardening!