Grow a Cutting Garden: Strategies for Fresh Bouquets All Season

Simple Strategies

Lush flowerbeds tempt you to snip stems for indoor arrangements, but you hesitate to leave bare spots. Here are two strategies for plenty of cuttable flowers without ruining your garden's look.

1. Plant a cutting garden. Designate a bed solely for cutting—along a garage or back corner. Give it full sun and rich, well-drained soil. No need to worry about aesthetics; mix colors, textures, heights, varieties freely. Plant all your favorites.

2. Keep it simple. Plant in rows for easy weeding, feeding, cutting. Integrate with a vegetable/herb garden—crop-style planting blends in. If space is limited, spread cutting flowers throughout existing beds; don't cluster.

Find tips for creating a fragrant garden.

3. Plan ahead. Draw existing beds on paper, noting varieties, bloom times, heights. Pencil in desired cutting flowers. Use bloom cycles to create a continuous mix.

4. Mix and match. Balance perennials (return yearly) and annuals (experiment yearly). Both make excellent cut flowers. More colors, heights, textures = more fun arrangements.

5. Don't limit yourself. Use flowering hedges, aromatic herbs, interesting foliage for pizzazz.

Perennial Best Sellers

• Achillea (yarrow)
• Anemone japonica (Japanese anemone)
• Campanula (bellflower)
• Carnation
• Coreopsis
• Echinacea (coneflower)
• Gaillardia (blanketflower)
• Hibiscus moscheutos (rose mallow)
• Iris
• Liatris (gay-feather)
• Monarda (bee balm)
• Paeonia (peony)
• Phlox
• Rosa (rose)
• Rudbeckia (black-eyed Susan)
• Salvia
• Veronica (speedwell)

Great Annual Cutting Flowers

• Ageratum (flossflower)
• Calendula (pot marigold)
• Centaurea cyanus (bachelor's-button)
• Consolida (larkspur)
• Dianthus (clove pink)
• Gladiolus
• Helianthus (sunflower)
• Lathyrus (sweet pea)
• Matthiola (stock)
• Tagetes (marigold)
• Zinnia

Cutting Garden Tips and Techniques

1. Stagger planting of each variety so blooms don't all appear/disappear at once.
2. Water, feed, deadhead regularly for maximum blooms.
3. Cut flowers early morning or evening, not in midday heat.
4. Use sharp, clean tools—dirty tools spread bacteria. Consider a Deluxe Flower Cutter with razor blade, stem clip, and thorn stripper.
5. Submerge cut stems in warm water with floral preservative for 1 hour to rehydrate before arranging.
6. Remove foliage that will sit below water line in vase.