No need for sprawling gardens and green thumbs; all it takes are flowers with prolific blooms and long stems for arrangement!
Choose a location with plenty of direct sunlight. Loosen the soil and incorporate compost or slow-release flower fertilizer before planting your seeds or bulbs. If space is limited, consider creating raised beds.
Plan Your Garden
Ideal cut flower gardens feature perennial and annual flowers in various colors, sizes, shapes and forms that bring life and texture to floral arrangements. Annuals produce single flowers on each stem while perennials provide long-term color and texture to floral designs.
If possible, cultivating flowers in raised beds will enhance soil quality and drainage. Prior to planting flowers, add high quality compost or well-rotted manure into the ground before seeding begins.
Group your plants based on their cultural needs, planting those with similar requirements together. For instance, tall plants like sunflowers should be planted at the back, with medium-sized ones like zinnias in the center and short ones at the front. Zinnias with long, straight stems such as this should be pinched when they reach 8 to 12 inches to promote branching and flowering – typically once their second set of leaves have grown out.
Prepare the Soil
Before beginning to cultivate a cut flower garden, it’s necessary to prepare the area. Add organic matter to improve soil structure and incorporate into planting beds; additionally, clear any weeds in these beds before starting any seeds or seedlings.
Plan your planting bed design around flowers that have long vase lives and excellent cutting potential, such as long-stemmed annuals and perennials like lupines, irises and sweet peas. Also add shrubs and grasses with interesting foliage into the mix for maximum visual impact.
Be sure to space out the bloom times of all of the flowers you plan on growing so you have something fresh for cutting all season long from your garden. For instance, plant spring bulbs that start flowering early summer and then annuals which bloom after they fade as an effective coverup solution. It is also important that each group of plants has exactly what it needs in terms of cultural requirements – this way it becomes easier to provide each group exactly what it requires without accidentally overwatering or underwatering them accidentally.
Plant the Flowers
When planting, be mindful that the flowers you select should have long and sturdy stems. Achieving good vase life depends upon whether or not a bloom can stand up upright once cut; for instance, bending its stem causes it to collapse and no longer look as nice.
Most cut flower plants require rich, well-draining soil with at least six hours of full sunlight per day to thrive in. When selecting plants to add to your cut flower garden, it is important to determine their individual requirements so as to prevent accidentally overwatering or underwatering them. This will prevent accidental mishandling in your cut flower garden.
Plant your cut flower garden in beds or plots that allow for easy access when cutting the blooms for harvesting. Before beginning, it may help to sketch your garden layout on paper as this can make it easier for you to visualize how flowers and foliage will fit together.
Care for Your Flowers
Just follow these simple tips and you’ll soon have beautiful blooms ready for indoor arrangements this summer.
An ideal garden features a mix of hardy perennials (like larkspur and delphinium) with easy-to-grow annual flowers like zinnias and marigolds to provide year-round color. Also consider including some sturdy plants that need support, like vining nasturtiums and sweet peas that require staking or support to bring the season full circle.
Stagger the planting times of different varieties so they won’t all appear and disappear at once. Water and feed your flowers regularly, using clean pruning shears when necessary to prune dead blooms and remove foliage as needed. Cut stems at an angle for increased surface area and improved absorption rates of the stems; change vase water frequently to extend bloom life span; use preservative to lengthen bloom life span as well.