Are you interested in learning how to grow your own cut flower garden? Well, you've come to the right place. Incorporating seasonal and fresh flowers into your garden is not only a good idea but it can also elevate your whole growing experience and bring so much joy to a space while also providing new pollinator habitats, crafting materials, fundraising opportunities, dried teas, gifts and more! In this beginner friendly guide we will go over the basics including how to set up a flower bed, learning when the best time is to plant, and what varieties are easiest for a first-time grower.
What is a Cutting Flower Garden?
A cutting flower garden, AKA a cutting garden, is a flower bed or growing space designed to grow flowers that do well as bouquets because of their long bloom time, long stems, hardiness in a vase, and overall appearance or fragrance.
Cutting gardens often include a mix of annual flowers, perennial flowers, and foliage plants that can be used as filler. What you can grow in your space will depend on how much space you have to work with, your sun exposure, and grow zone (covered ahead).
Why grow your own cut flowers?
If there's one thing I wish I would have learned sooner, it was how to grow my own fresh-cut flowers (also known as cutting flowers). When I first started growing plants from seeds, I heavily prioritized veggies, because it was what I typically saw others doing and I was intimidated by the idea of growing flowers. Now, every season I fill at least half of my planting trays with flower seeds.
It's cost effective
It's pretty easy to find inexpensive veggies to grow each season, but flowers? That gets expensive quickly. An average 6-pack of annual flowers usually costs between $4-$8 in our area.
You get more varieties of flowers
If you haven't looked at a seed catalog recently, you would be amazed at just how many types of flowers are out there. When you buy plants from a nursery, you may not realize how limited your options are. A commercial operation will prioritize growing flowers that work for them, but that may not line up with your vision for your space. Where they might pick plants that are popular sellers or transport well, you may decide you want something because it's easy to grow from seed, or because it's low maintenance.
It's more sustainable
Large-scale commercial flower growers ship their products around the world. That means long-distance, refrigerated plane and truck transport which adds up to a pretty hefty carbon footprint. On top of that, most growers will use chemical insecticides or isolate flowers in expensive greenhouse operations to minimize damage. This has been shown to harm the people working in these facilities as well as the people who live nearby. They will use synthetic fertilizers which can seep into local waterways and wreak havoc on local flora and fauna. Growing your own flowers takes you out of this very destructive industry. Plus, you get the benefit of seeing your flowers growing for the entire season, attracting pollinators and other wildlife, not just the week they sit in a vase on your table.
Growing your own flowers takes you out of this very destructive industry. Plus, you get the benefit of seeing your flowers growing for the entire season, attracting pollinators and other wildlife, not just the week they sit in a vase on your table.
Designing and preparing your flower garden
Now that you're ready to take the plunge, let's get your space prepared. When designing your cut flower garden, you will first need to know the overall size you have to work with and your daily sun exposure.
1. Choose the Right Location
Choosing the right location is key for your cut flower garden to be successful.
Find a Sunny Spot
The sun is absolutely critical for getting lots of beautiful blooms. In order to produce the most blooms, your garden will need lots of sunlight, so aim for at least 6-8 hours of full sun for most varieties of flowers. As you design your growing space, pay attention to the height of your flowers at maturity so that taller plants, like sunflowers, don't shade out shorter flowers like tulips. Keep your taller flowers at the back of your bed and your shorter flowers closer to the front to allow easy access to all your blooms and even sun exposure throughout the day. The biggest mistake first time growers make is picking a spot that doesn't get enough sunlight.
2. Figure out your Row Width
Three to four feet wide rows are ideal for growing most flowers with paths on either side so that you can have easy access to your homegrown flowers. Rows can be long and straight or gently bent along slopes or existing paths. Growing in a long line makes laying irrigation easy (more below). You may consider adding some posts in the corners of your flower bed to attach simple netting or rope to that will help keep your flowers supported when they are heavy with blooms later in the season.
3. Improve your Soil Quality
You will want to plant flowers in well-drained soil that has been amended with organic matter such as compost. Aim for about 1/3 compost to about 2/3 regular soil for the top 6-8 inches of your bed.
If you feel your plants could use a boost partway through the season, you can always top dress around them with additional handfuls of compost or apply liquid organic fertilizer (just don't overdue it). Poor soil that is lacking in key plant nutrients will result in stunted, weak plants.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no need to heavily till or work the soil unless it is intensely compacted from heavy foot traffic.
If your soil is mostly clay, you can amend it with things that will improve soil texture and drainage for your garden. Things like leaf litter and dry straw are cheap ways to lighten your soil texture without adding tons of expense.
If your soil is mostly clay, you can amend it with things that will improve soil texture and drainage for your garden. Things like leaf litter and dry straw are cheap ways to lighten your soil texture without adding tons of expense. Planting in a mounded bed instead of flat soil can also naturally encourage drainage in heavy soil.
4. Set up irrigation for your beautiful flowers
For a beginner, a simple soaker hose or drip irrigation will be more than enough for your growing space. I recommend getting a watering timer that will automate the process. Inconsistent watering stresses out plants and can cause poor or failed blooms, so it's important to get your plan together at the beginning. Baby flowers will have short roots at first, so plan to water everything more frequently up front, even varieties that are considered drought tolerant will need ample watering in order to get established rooting. As your flowers mature, you can taper off your watering schedule to be less and less frequent.
When watering your cut-flower garden, aim for deep watering 2-3 times a week instead of short watering every day. I water my cut flowers for 60-80 minutes twice a week, or three times if we are in a heat wave. Shallow watering for 10-15 minutes is not typically enough for the soil to fully saturate in our area in northern California. If you are in a humid climate or have frequent rain, adjust your watering schedule to your local area.
How to start your new cut flower garden
With your space established, now we can figure out the best cut flowers for your garden. The process for starting seeds for flowers is similar to growing a vegetable garden. Let's start with the basics.
What should you grow?
The first step is picking what flowers you'd like to grow. My very cliché, but solid advice for your first year is to start simple. Pick a few flowers that you already know a little bit about, and get varieties of those flowers (different colors, sizes, shapes). Within one type of flower, there are usually lots of varieties that you can pick from to get the colors and shapes that will make fresh flower arrangements different every time. You'll also spare yourself a lot of guesswork and simplify your experience because the timing of your plants will be closely aligned, and the care they need will be similar.
I also recommend you start with inexpensive annual flowers before investing in more expensive perennial flowers or dahlia tubers. Unless you have a particular urge to plant roses or dahlias, I would learn the ropes with easier annual plants such as cosmos, zinnias, sweet peas, or bachelor's buttons (cornflowers) so that you can get the basics down before taking on a bigger financial or care intensive flower.
Look around your local area
Another great way to get familiar with your local options is to look around at what others are already growing nearby. Look for local flower farm websites, gardening groups, or Instagram accounts of growers in your grow zone. They'll have already selected types that do well in your climate, which saves you a lot of trial and error and comes with the added benefit of their advice on how to grow them. You may even be able to visit some of these locations to get a sense of the practical needs for the flowers: height, spacing, sun exposure and so on.
Timing your blooms
Now that you know what you like, it's time to look at the calendar and determine your last frost date as well as your flower's mature by date to learn how long your growing season is. This will tell you how long it will take your seed to go from germination to final harvest in ideal conditions. Line up your flower choices based on their mature by dates and when they should be planted outside (which is usually tied to your first frost date or your last frost date). This will give you a clear idea of what will be ready to harvest first, second, and so on. If you'd prefer everything be ready to harvest at the same time, you can use the mature by date to pick flowers that will be ready together. For example, our Mother's day flower garden needed really specific timing so we picked flowers that had fast mature by dates so we could harvest a lot of them all at once (see our mother's day garden below in the cheat sheet). In my garden at home, I pick flowers that will mature at different speeds so that I always have something to harvest from early spring to late summer.
Mother's Day Garden cheat sheet:
Cosmos: Mature in 65 days
Flowers: pink, purple, white, two-color flowers
Pros: Super easy to grow, continuous blooming, pollinator-friendly
Cons: Can get large and fall over if you don't trim them early on
Zinnias: Mature in 60-70 days
Flowers: pink, purple, white, green, yellow, red, orange, multi-color, two-tone flowers
Pros: Amazing color variety, easy to grow from seed, drought tolerant, long-lasting in a vase
Cons: Take a while to reach fully-ruffled bloom
Sunflowers: Mature in 70 days
Flowers: golden, orange, burgundy, two-tone flowers
Pros: Great for pollinators, drought tolerant, offer shade and wind protection to nearby plants
Cons: Some varieties will produce lots of pollen that can be messy in a vase, seeds and sprouts may get eaten by birds and rodents
Bachelor's Buttons: Mature in 65 days
Flowers: pink, purple, and white flowers
Pros: Fast to germinate, drought-tolerant, easy to grow, plants stay smaller size
Cons: Smaller flowers, not as much of a statement in the vase. Plants aren't as heat tolerant as other summer flowers
Planting time!
Now that you know what to grow and you've gathered your seeds or seedlings, it's time to get them in the ground. If you'd like additional help on how to start plants from seeds, check out my other guides)
Whether you're starting with baby plant starts or seeds directly in the soil, your plan will be much the same, you're going to plant more than what it says on the packet. I recommend this for two reasons. First, this will ensure that even if you lose some plants, you'll still have plenty that survive. And second, the denser planting will greatly reduce your need for mulching and weeding the space because the flowers will naturally provide this as a denser group.
If you're concerned about overcrowding, or you're seeing signs of it (like powdery mildew). You can thin them out by taking a pair of scissors or sheers and trimming the flower off at the soil line. This reduces crowding without disrupting the roots.
Don't forget to pinch your plants
In plants like cosmos, zinnias, and bachelor's buttons, pinching off your first main stem will encourage the plant to grow bushier with more flowers instead of taller with fewer flowers. To do this, simply wait for your flower has a few sets of leaves, then use your fingernail to pinch off the main stem just above the first few rows of leaves.. You can trim off blooms any time you feel your plant is getting tall and skinny in order to encourage it to round out and fill with more blooms.
Remove damaged leaves and deadhead as needed
In order to encourage fresh flowers, you'll want to remove old blooms as well as dried foliage or dead stems as your garden grows.
My favorite summer cut flowers for beginners:
Zinnias
Sunflowers
Cosmos
Bachelors Button (cornflowers)
Sweet Peas*
Carrot Flower (letting the vegetable go to seed)
Fennel*
Snapdragons
Alstroemeria
Yarrow
Strawflower
Gomphrena
Scabiosa
*Spring blooming (prefers cooler temps)
How did it go?
Did you find this page useful? Did you have other tips to share? Anything I missed? I've love to hear from you! Let me know
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