The Practice of Hortus: Cutting Garden Course, March
As Spring arrives in the full flood of her beauty and promise, March is an ideal time to start creating a cutting garden for a wonderful palette of summer blooms. This day, led by our Senior grower, Caroline, will give you an insight into what and how we grow at Hortus.
We will introduce you to our seed sowing and propagation techniques, discuss succession sowing, greenhouse management for healthy plants, our palette and how we achieve the characteristics we want our stems to have through staking and netting.
This is the moment to take cuttings from later flowering plants such as dahlias and chrysanthemums. Together, we’ll explore our propagation techniques, and you’ll take home a tray of freshly prepared cuttings to nurture and grow on. In addition to the seeds you’ve sown and the cuttings you’ve prepared to take home, you’ll receive a selection of our overwintered cutting garden staples (not plugs). These established plants will reward you with the earliest possible flowers, alongside the profound pleasure of tending others from seed to maturity.
We will also spend time in Gillie’s cutting garden, considering its design, what we grow there and why, and how to plan for a succession of stems throughout the season and beyond.
Our florists will guide you through the art of the curated pick, how we select stems from the season to create texture and detail using both foraged and grown materials, and how we cut and condition each one for longevity and beauty.
As always, your day will include a full tour of the farm, rarely open to the public, and a lovely homemade lunch.
This course is led by Hortus’ Senior Grower, Caroline, who heads up the HP growing team with extensive experience in private gardens and the National Trust. Together, she and Gillie have shaped this course, designed to enable you to cultivate your own cutting garden, and to enjoy stems in every season.
At the heart of Hortus lies a profound respect for both land and stem. Caroline, Gillie and the entire HP team look to tread as lightly as possible in the way we grow, harvest and gather, mindful always of the rhythms of the soil and the significant wellness benefits that come from tending flowers. These principles are woven throughout our teaching and considered as important as the flowers themselves.
This growing course unfolds across three separate days across the year, in March, June and September, guiding you through the Hortus year at our sides. You will learn how to plan a Hortus cutting garden and explore our growing techniques, such as sowing, propagation and plant care, in step with the seasons. Each day may be booked individually or as a complete series, allowing flexibility while offering the richness of the full annual journey.
Each course day also includes a seasonal talk from one of our florists, exploring the palette we cherish at that moment in the year. You will learn how we pick and condition our stems, what the hedgerows and wild places offer for foraging, and how - as growers and floral designers - we thoughtfully select both grown and foraged materials to create depth, texture and detail. This is not a demonstration of arranging, but rather an insight into the art of the curated pick: how to choose a harmonious, characterful gathering of stems that sing of their season.
For an expansion of each day, please see our Field Notes on the March, June and September Sessions. As always, your day will include a full tour of the farm, rarely open to the public, and a homemade seasonal lunch.
Details
Thursday 26th March, 10:00 - 16:00
Thursday 3rd June, 10:00 - 16:00
Thursday 17th September, 10:00 - 16:00
Individual days are £225. Two Sessions - £425. Three Sessions - £600