RHS The Little Book of Cut-Flower Gardening: How to grow flowers and foliage sustainably for beautiful arrangements

The ideal companion for anyone starting a new cut flower patch, inspiring and guiding you to fill your home with armfuls of fresh, sustainable, and beautiful blooms all year around.

Flowers brighten our homes, our lives and, when they are homegrown, they also brighten our gardens - not just for us, but also for the buzzing wildlife that loves their nectar. Growing your own flowers gives the huge satisfaction of harvesting something from a plant you have nurtured, and brings a greater connection with nature and the seasons. It also allows you to have a house full of flowers at a fraction of the cost of buying them, all with a sustainable, positive environmental impact.

RHS The Little Book of Cut-Flower Gardening is the perfect introduction to growing your own blooms. Whether your cut-flower patch is a handful of pots or a gracious yard, you'll find accessible information on successful and sustainable growing, to keep your plot healthy and as productive as possible. As well as introductory chapters on planning and gardening basics, there are details on how to cut your flowers and extend their vase life, and how to dry flowers for everlasting arrangements.

More than just flowers, the directories break down the blooms and foliage into their different groups. There are sections on annuals from seed, such as love-in-a-mist, ammi and sweet peas; growing bulbs and tubers such as tulips and dahlias; perennials for flower and foliage, such as lady's mantle, lavender, roses, apple mint and ornamental grasses; and shrubs and trees for foliage, flower, spring blossom and colourful winter stems.

Holly Farrell spent two years at RHS Gardens Wisley where she gained the Wisley Diploma in Practical Horticulture, and the RHS Certificate and Diploma (both with Commendation), and where she won the Nicholson Prize for overall contribution to RHS Garden Wisley as a trainee. After working as Head Gardener on a private estate she now combines designing and improving gardens for private clients with her developing career as a garden writer for publications such as Kitchen Garden and the RHS magazine The Garden. Holly is the author of several books including RHS Gardening for Mindfulness, RHS Little Book of Happy Houseplants and Planting Plans for Your Kitchen Garden: How to Create a Vegetable, Herb and Fruit Garden in Easy Stages. She lives in Oxfordshire.