Growing a cut flower garden can be as straightforward or complex as your gardening experience and space limitations allow. With some careful planning, however, you can harvest an abundance of blooms throughout the season for use in bouquets.
Assemble an assortment of perennials and annuals into your arrangements to provide flowers at different stages of development for an eye-catching display. Don’t forget to deadhead regularly so as to encourage blooming plants back into producing more blossoms! Deadheading also encourages their energy into producing blooms instead of decay.
Location
An ideal location for a cut flower garden should receive ample sunlight. Many types of blooms do not thrive when exposed to shade. Assess existing garden beds to see the amount of direct sun they get; or if space allows, consider creating an exclusive cutting garden area specifically dedicated to cutting.
Choose an assortment of annual and perennial plants for your cut flower garden, such as perennials such as yarrow or garden phlox to provide structure to bouquets, while annuals such as cosmos or sweet peas will bloom all season long. Also consider including “two-fers,” which offer both blooms and foliage to extend harvest further.
Soil
Your cutting garden will quickly become an oasis of blooms with some careful planning and luck. Be sure to add organic material and mulch as this will keep weeds at bay and retain moisture levels in your soil.
Before planting, locate an area which gets full sun. Many cut flower varieties require full sunlight in order to thrive; to be certain of this, inspect your site hourly throughout the day in order to make sure it receives adequate illumination.
Examine the back of your seed packet for information regarding specific growing requirements for each flower variety. In general, cool-season blooms such as sweet peas should be planted early spring while warmer-season varieties such as zinnias can be begun 8-10 weeks before their last frost date.
Water
Watering a cutting garden correctly will produce more blooms, so be sure to plan ahead and set up your water system. In addition, consider how much space is available as well as any raised beds that you plan on adding.
Roses and tulips thrive best under acidic conditions, while sweet peas, snapdragons and larkspur thrive best under alkaline environments. To reduce bacteria accumulation in your water supply and prevent stem clogging issues it is a good idea to add citric acid or vinegar.
Fertilizer
For reliable bouquets, liquid flower fertilizer should be applied upon planting and every two to three weeks during the growing season. This will encourage plants to produce long stems with multiple blooms.
Deadheading faded blossoms is another way of encouraging plants to continue producing flowers. You can do this manually or with shears; either method should work equally well and should ideally take place above a set of healthy leaves in order to reduce stress on the plant.
Starting seedlings indoors should begin several weeks (or even a month) prior to your region’s last frost date, however fast-growing annuals like zinnias and cosmos can be directly planted into late spring soil without direct sowing. You can also winter sow cooler-season flowers like larkspur, sweet peas and foxgloves outdoors using containers in containers during late fall/winter sowing season.
Pruning
Cutting gardens are dedicated areas containing flowers grown specifically for harvesting and indoor arrangement. You can design it into rows or grids for easy maintenance and harvesting.
Weeding is essential to maintaining a successful cut flower garden. Use a hand trowel or small weeding fork to dig out any roots of unwanted weeds from the soil surface and uproot them from their source. For maximum efficiency, perform this task when the soil moisture level is slightly damp; pulling up weeds becomes much simpler.
Cleaning out beds, digging up dahlias if necessary in colder regions and applying one final fertilizer application before winter is essential to ensure next year’s success. Now is also an opportune time to start seeds indoors for plants that require long growing seasons.
Deadheading
Although most cut flowers are annuals, sunflowers and celosia may come back next year if their seeds fall; sowing should take place during late spring to increase chances of success.
Before beginning, select a location with full sunlight. Many plants need at least some direct sunlight in order to thrive; take time out during the daytime hours to observe how much light reaches any given spot in your yard.
Deadheading is essential to keeping a beautiful cut flower garden. Use clean and sharp pruners or scissors to pinch off faded blooms just above healthy leaves or buds using clean pincers or shears.
Pollinators
Contrary to garden beds or borders designed purely for aesthetics, cutting gardens can be organized in long rows that make harvesting and tending easier. Furthermore, their uniform spacing makes identifying and eliminating pests or weeds much simpler.
Annual flowers are ideal, since they tend to bloom for only one season and mature quickly, unlike perennials that take multiple years before blooming. But perennials can still provide an eclectic array of colors, textures and foliage options.
As part of your planning, choose plants based on their needs (sunlight, water supply, soil drainage requirements and expected bloom time/size) as well as personal preferences and don’t forget fertilization!