Grow a Great Cutting Garden: A Flower Farmer's Secrets

On Washington's Olympic Peninsula, the Cutting Garden flower farm bursts with such dense, colorful blooms in summer that it seems to glow. Foxtail lilies tower over peonies and poppies; callas and columbines spill onto gravel paths; roses and clematis clamber over arbors and up trees. At the center of it all stands owner Catherine Mix, pruning knife in one hand, a nosegay in the other, preparing bouquets for one of 35 garden weddings hosted each summer.

A dozen years ago, Catherine and her husband Tom lived in Issaquah and worked at Boeing. "I just grew the basics then," she recalls—dahlias, peonies, rhododendrons. She sold dahlias at a flower stand but never imagined the future that awaited. When they built their farmhouse on 24 windswept acres of former horse pasture in Sequim, they decided to grow their flower business too. Catherine wanted low-maintenance plants that would deliver a succession of blooms from May through October, and a design that incorporated the dahlias, rhododendrons, and peonies she'd brought from her old garden. The question was which new flowers to add and how to combine them with her favorites.

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