In my Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day post for August I mentioned how I couldn’t tell the difference between my two Cutting Garden pale sunflowers, Helianthus cuc Italian White and Helianthus Vanilla Ice. Well I can now – the one above, H. cuc Italian White, is now about 7ft tall, a good 2ft taller than Vanilla Ice. They’re both still going strong and highly recommended, but I think I prefer the taller variety for cutting.
Below the Salvia horminum ‘Oxford Blue’, is also still flowering profusely. The stems are getting even longer and it’s a brilliant, long lasting cut flower.
This is one of the few Ten Weeks Stocks still flowering. As I mentioned last month I don’t think I’d grow these again. They never seem to have more than a couple of flowers blooming on the stem at any one time, and although they smell gorgeous, the flowers look rather mean and a bit tatty. I think I’ll keep looking for alternative varieties as there must be better ones and I adore the scent of stocks.
I have already planted some more Matthiola Incana seed for next year, but if anyone knows of other stock seed worth growing I’d love to know.
The two Cosmos varieties, C. Double Click Snow Puff and C. Double Click Cranberries are starting to look rather exhausted, but they have been pumping out blooms for months so I’m not complaining. Interestingly the two different varieties I have at home, Cosmos Purity and Cosmos Dazzler, both single, are both still flowering well. Do you think making double flowers is more exhausting?
Meanwhile the Antirrhinum, A. Orange Wonder, seems to have gone rather more pink as it’s aged, very strange! There are still plenty of flowers coming and, as with the Salvias, the stems are lengthening, making them even better for cutting – and there’s very little rust which was definitely a problem last year. 
The Zinnias are also still producing well, with Z. Giant Scarlet, 
Z. Giant Wine
and favourite Z. Raspberry Cordial.
I’m also still supplementing these Cutting Garden blooms with various flowers from the garden, including dahlias, dianthus, molucella. However, there’s no doubt the Cutting Garden is starting to look a little autumnal and I can’t help but wonder how many blooms I’ll still have to share by next month.
Duver Diary 
Beautiful!
Thanks Sheryl. It certainly helped that it was such a beautiful day!
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I like Salvia horminum ‘Oxford Blue’ here and in your vase today; I must look out for that one. I had trouble identifying my sunflowers too, but mine are over now. I felt the same way about the ten week stock so if you do find something better do let me know.
Hi Christina, I did have Ruby Punch earlier in the year, but I didn’t stake them and they didn’t do very well. And I still had that issue of not many flowers per stem.
How do the professional growers do it? Surely it has to be the variety? Hmmm.
Thank you Jenn for your lovely post this month. I failed completely with sunflowers this year and have missed having them in the garden. I have always preferred Vanilla Ice because of its shorter habit – less likely to blow over or bend, but your Italian White does look tempting. I still have some double cosmos flowering well but they were sown after the singles which are starting to look tatty now – perhaps it is just sowing date that affects their performance. I do find the doubles last a bit longer in a vase – have you had the same experience? Re the stocks I agree about 10 week stocks and will not be growing them again. Have a look at the stock seeds that Seeds of Distinction supply – I am going to try those next year. It is interesting to read what they say about the colour of the seedlings – apparently the lighter coloured seedlings will produce double flowers.