suggestions please: easy to grow annuals suitable for cutting and putting in vases

[MamaChocoholic]

we have decided to set aside a small patch of the allotment this year to grow some flowers with the intention of brightening up our hosue with cut flowers. it's seed order time, and I realise I know next to nothing about flowers! thinking of sweet peas, asters, cosmos. anything else anyone would recommend? have set aside a bit over 4 sq metres (ish).

Sarah Raven is great on growing flowers, here is her book and website

I too have decided to have an area for flowers on the allotment. We have an unsightly fence that has been planted to make a hedge and while we are waiting I have thrown in crocosmia, aster, michealmas daisies, nasturtiums, alchemilla mollis, sedum and a packet of wild flower seeds. It has looked lovely, I am really pleased.

Good luck with your Cutting Garden! I have visions of wafting around in a floaty ensemble and hat, with a trug and daity shears. I ^know^ I will be grubby, nay, filthy dirty in my usual gardening gear and DP will be saying, 'let's go home' in the gloaming as I say, 'just one more minute' and hack away at the poor blooms!!

ooh alchemilla mollis looks lovely! also crocosmia and sedum, but we have those in abundance in the garden (sedum just flowering now and trying to convince me summer is not yet over). glad your flower garden is working well. afraid my visions are a bit less romantic and focused on persuading bribing and cajoling dcs to play in the mud for short periods whilst I frantically weed and dig around them, but, in time, perhaps I too will learn to waft

have just lost spent half an hour on sarah raven's website. very keen to get going with an autumn sowing now!

Love-in-a-mist (nigella) and Alliums make great dried flowers for a winter vase.
Coneflowers (echinacea) and pot marigolds are good attractors of hoverflies and bees.
Lavender smells delicious and dries well.

Agree with pot marigolds - there are nice varieties bred for cutting.

I love cornflowers and grow a patch of mixed colours just for cutting.