The Flower List: Growing Your Own Vintage Country Bouquets

Today, I'll be sharing my all-time favourite Vintage Country Flowers to grow in my garden for beautiful Modern Country Style bouquets.

With this Vintage Flower Starter Kit in your own garden space, you'll be putting together Country bouquets in no time at all.

How can your Vintage Flower Starter Kit possibly start anywhere but roses? I can always, always, always find another space in the garden to squeeze in an extra rose.

Many of the roses available from florists have been greenhouse-grown or imported but it is possible to get a similar look with roses from your own garden. If you have a small garden, stick with varieties in soft pinks (New Dawn, The Generous Gardener, Geoff Hamilton) and whites (Iceberg, Elina) but if you have more room then the sky's the limit! For soft yellowy-butterscotch roses, try Graham Thomas. One of my favourite climbers is Dublin Bay, which produces perfect, soft, velvety red roses. 

Sweet Peas are easy to grow from seed. The spidery tendrils produce a tumbling mass of flowers that, rather miraculously, the more you cut, the more they respond with even more blooms. 

Buy varieties that smell delicious, like Matucana and Black Night, and, by sowing in succession, you'll have sweet peas by your bedside from May to September.

Next on my list is Larkspur, the annual version of the delphinium. Plant these once and they'll be with you year after year, thanks to their awesome self-seeding skills. 

The tall spikes of Larkspur add height with prettiness: perfect for soft country shades of pink, purple, blue and white..

Foxgloves are another tall flower that self-seed magnificently. I know many a gardener that might label them a weed but, ever since I was a little girl, I've adored their finger-sized rows of mini megaphones. 

Foxgloves are just lovely in any number of colours, from softened magenta...

to the rather more sophisticated white forms (try Snow Thimble)...

Hydrangeas are my current numero unos. O:B:S:E:S:S:E:D!

In fact, so evangelically enthusiastic am I that I'll be sharing my must-have varieties in the very next post. Warning: it's really worth researching carefully before you buy because hydrangeas change astonishingly throughout the season

Last on my list is lilac. 

Sturdy, easy-peasy to grow and look after, even for a novice, lilac's itty-bitty flowers bundled together into spire-like cones soften the formality of roses. 

With my Starter Kit of these glorious Country flowers:

roses,

larkspur,

hydrangeas,

foxgloves,

sweet peas...

...coupled with the best foliage around (post coming shortly), your Modern Country flower bouquets will be the envy of all your friends.

Images via: Lovemydress, fioribylynne, Pinterest, Pinterest, Sarah Raven, Elizabeth Ann Designs, ewildflowers, flickr, sarahwinward, cottagemagpie, indulgy, unknown, lovemydress, hgtv, flowerdesignstannes