sarah raven's cutting bed

[goddess]

iam trying to revamp a neglected side of the border.after watching GW and sarah's garden ,ive decided to use HHA to provide lots of colour on the cheap.
So far i dug the bed ,threw couple of very old shrubs in composter and put that organic soil conditioner in.
My plan isto plant
1.dhalia dark chocolate:took few shoots of mother tuber and seem to be rooting nicely
2.verbena bonariensis :again rooted cuttings from last month
3.zinnia seeds(forget the name)not sown yet
4. pink cosmos (plantlets from jparkers GC)
Forgot to say the space is about 4by 1 metres(sadly not as big as sarah's garden)
any other suggestions welcome
Thanks.g

[beach chick]

hi goddess - not all HHAs here, but things I've found good to cut for the house:
verbena bonariensis - fianlly managed to get it to establish and self seed from last year - fab plant
cosmos - mine do really really well here (kent), wherever I chuck seeds in they seem to thrive and self seed. surprised, coz when you read the seed packet it sounds harder... last year, plants from garden centre were piddly, but my seeds lobbed into bed did really well.
peony - if you can wait, peonies take a few years to establish, but then make lovely cut flowers. v. expensive to buy, and wasted in the garden coz it always rains when they open, but if you have the patience they are wonderful for cutting.
sweet peas - did mine too late this year, but the more you cut the more you get...
roses - cant be without them for indoors.
also stuff like michaelmas daisies, golden rod, etc - things that are out later/earlier in year when shop flowers are expensive.

[nick the grief]

Stocks, Sweet Williams, Wallflowers are all good for colour and grow from seed.
Nigella "Persian Jewels" is another good one. If you can get to SPalding later on in the year you could pick up a load of Daffs & Tulips cheap and plant these to start things off next year.

Tulip "Queen of the Night" is one of my favourites and Pheasant's Eye daffs ( poeticus) but there are loads to choose.

How about some Gladioli as well? If you contact the British Gladioli society http://www.britglad.com/index.html and ask them where they will me having a stand you could go along and buy some off them as they sell cormlets that you grow on and they are 3 packets for £1 I think and you get about 20+ in a packet!! eother named varieties or you can get mixed.