Planting a cut flower garden is easier than you think. Simply ensure easy access to the flowers you intend to harvest by selecting narrow rows over wide ones and leaving plenty of garden paths between each plant.
Make sure to factor blooming time into the equation as well. Annual cut flowers like cosmos, zinnias and sunflowers produce blossoms throughout the season while others such as dahlias and sweet peas have shorter-lived bloom periods.
Planting Season
Sunlight is key for cultivating a successful cut flower garden. Find an area that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight daily – most preferably early morning sun!
Combine colors, textures, heights and varieties for a visually captivating garden. For optimal blooms, sow seeds or seedlings several weeks apart so as to stagger flowering periods and increase visibility.
Assemble a separate cutting garden bed instead of mixing it in with existing perennial beds to make management simpler and upkeep simpler. Use row crop method planting, weeding and harvesting all at the same time!
Soil Preparation
Starting seeds may seem like magic; seeing one tiny seed sprout, grow and produce armloads of vibrant, fragrant blooms is truly astonishing. But planting a cut flower garden requires special considerations.
Starting out, most flowers require rich, well-draining soil and six to eight hours of direct sunlight for proper development and growth. Furthermore, cutting flowers must possess long stems; accordingly they should be planted 9″ apart or closer (depending on variety) in order to allow proper development and length.
Planting them in straight rows or grids makes harvesting and controlling weeds and pests much simpler, while making use of both perennials and annuals that grow easily.
Watering
Growing flowers is both thrilling and fulfilling. From humble seeds, big plants sprout with fragrant, vibrant blooms that produce beautiful bouquets or arrangements – an alchemical feat indeed!
Plan the layout of your cutting garden beds so it will be easy for you to access all the plants. For instance, if you plan on growing sunflowers, plant them in wide rows so you won’t have to trample over their stems while cutting stems for flower arrangements.
Group plants based on their growing requirements, including watering or sunlight needs. This will ensure you don’t accidentally overwater or underwater certain plants, while blooming times should also be taken into consideration; some perennials require two years before blooming starts while other only provide cutting material before succumbing to frost damage and die off completely.
Fertilizing
Ziegler notes that adding organic matter such as compost is key in creating a planting bed suitable for cut flowers, while layering mulch helps ensure adequate moisture levels in your garden.
Leigh suggests grouping plants with similar growing needs together so you can provide optimal care, making harvesting faster and simpler.
Cutting gardens provide the ideal place to test out a range of annual varieties that bloom throughout the season, like cosmos, larkspur and sweet peas. You might also like to experiment with perennial species like yarrows, garden phlox and japanese anemones; remembering to deadhead regularly by pinching off spent flower heads just above each set of leaves as this will promote new growth and reflorescence.
Pruning
When planting cut flowers for gardens or bouquets, planting them in rows provides uniform growth that makes picking stems easy and efficient. Also adding fertilizer once every two to three weeks throughout the growing season will boost production while helping plants develop longer stems.
Your cut flower garden should ideally receive 6-8 hours of daily sun light. Zinnias and sunflowers require the sunlight in order to reach their full potential, while also taking into account wind and rain exposure which could damage sweet peas and climbing nasturtiums, needing support like trellises or other means for support purposes.