An ideal cutting garden provides easy care with beautiful blooms. Choose a combination of hardy perennials like zinnias and sunflowers with low maintenance annual flowers such as snapdragons or bachelor’s buttons to provide lasting color throughout the growing season.
Ascertain your growing zone and read seed packets carefully to understand which perennials will thrive and when to plant them. Group plants with similar cultural needs together.
Planting Season
Grow Your Own Cut Flowers When growing cut flowers at home, you will reap an abundance of blooms during each growing season. Plus, these easy flower varieties for beginners also serve as food sources for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators!
Launch your flower garden this spring or summer by sowing direct seeds or transplanting transplants directly from their packets, taking note of your hardiness zone and last frost date when sowing from seeds. When sowing from seed, follow instructions carefully according to seed packet instructions for sowing directly in soil or direct sowing into containers.
Prepare the soil before planting by loosening and digging in several inches of compost or organic matter, this will improve its condition while aiding water retention and drainage. Plant seeds or transplants at their recommended spacing – for instance larkspur, sweet peas and sunflowers should be planted 18″ apart while zinnias can be spaced 12″.
Soil Preparation
Before planting cut flowers, the soil must first be prepared. Most cut flowers require rich, loose soil with good drainage; consider adding organic material such as peat moss, compost or manure as organic amendments to improve it further. Raised beds are great ways to do this but you could easily incorporate cutting flowers into existing beds too.
Plan out your garden on paper so it is easier for you to visualize its space. Consider dividing up your beds according to bloom times and height of plants you intend on growing; seed packets often provide guidance in this regard.
Tall plants like sunflowers should go at the back of your bed while short stature annuals should be placed in the middle. Bear in mind that climbing nasturtiums and sweet peas require support like netting or trellises in order to remain upright as they grow – something which also keeps their appearance better over time.
Watering
As you plant, water deeply to encourage strong roots. A cut flower garden should feature both perennials (flowers that return year after year) and annuals (which grow, bloom, and die during one season). Achieving balance between these two categories will guarantee you fresh blooms throughout summertime.
Make sure the planting area is free from weeds by using tools like a hand trowel and weeding fork to clear away unwanted growth. A great tip when pulling out weeds from moist soil is doing so more easily and less damagingly.
Consider using a raised garden bed to enhance the quality of soil, as this makes weed control easy while giving flowers their best chance for success. Pinching is another gardening technique worth learning if your zinnias tend to get leggy; simply remove their growing tip with fingertips or clean shears to promote branching and longer stems.
Pruning
Growing a cut flower garden is both rewarding and enjoyable, plus an ideal way to attract pollinators, birds, and other forms of wildlife to visit your garden. Additionally, blooms and seeds provide nourishment throughout wintertime for wildlife that visit.
To maximize the potential of your cutting garden, choose varieties that thrive in your climate and are easy to cultivate. For instance, perennial flowers such as sunflowers and zinnias require stakes or other forms of support in order to avoid flopping over as they mature, while annual flowers like sweet peas and climbing nasturtiums grow on vineing plants that require either netting or trellis support to stay upright during their development.
As you create your beds, ensure there is enough space for all of the flowers you plan on growing. Incorporating perennials and annuals of different heights and bloom times into an engaging collection. Remember to use clean gardening shears when cutting stems out of the garden and change out water regularly in vases so as to prevent wilting of blooms.