Planting a Cutting Garden for Beginners
Are you a beginner looking for guidance on planting a cutting garden?
Growing your own flowers has many rewards. You can make your floral designs stand out with unusual or hard-to-find blooms. But one of the most valuable aspects of gardening is connecting to the cycles of nature.
Growing a cutting garden can be as easy as sticking a seed into the soil (yay, zinnias!), or as complex as finding just the right spot for a precious plant and then waiting three years to cut a flower (peonies—I'm talking about you).
If you are new to gardening, it's best to start with what's simple and build from there. Here's a general overview:
Seek Council Before You Start a Cutting Garden
Find someone in your area with a garden and get to know them. If they’ve been gardening for several seasons, they already have invaluable local knowledge, tips, and tricks for your specific area that wouldn’t be easily found online or in books. Also, follow blogs of experienced flower farmers—Floret and the Gardener's workshop blogs are full of helpful information (in addition to the Team Flower free resources, right here!).
Plan the Site for Growing Flowers
Where will you grow? Most flowers need at least six hours of sun per day, rich soil, and regular water. Plan your garden in a spot that you visit regularly. Growing along the path you take from your house to car makes sense.
Keep in mind that growing a cutting garden doesn’t exactly mean you’ll have a beautiful landscape feature as you’ll cut the flowers, so plan for that. If you don't want to install irrigation, you'll need to ensure the hose can reach the plants. Keep your growing bed width to 4 feet or less—unless you are tall or want to do some awkward yoga trying to harvest things in the middle.
Prep the Soil for Your Cut Flower Garden
It's generally a good idea to add organic matter to your soil before growing. Organic matter is compost, leaf litter, composted manure, or other things that will decompose and increase nutrients, aeration, and water holding capacity. It's the secret sauce in good gardening. When in doubt, purchase good quality potting soil or soil amendments (worm castings, soil conditioner, etc.) and mix it in with garden soil.
Planting a Cutting Garden: Selecting Flowers
Talk to that gardening neighbor and find out what planting schedule they use—it will save you time and money!
Or get online and find out your last frost date. Most seeds can be started indoors a couple of weeks before your last frost date, so they are ready to plant once the danger of frost is passed.
Some flowers ("cool flowers") like to get planted in the fall and overwinter. Others can stand a bit of frost and bounce back (ranunculuses), and some die if they are touched by frost (nasturtium). Flower seasons vary by location, but here is a basic rule of thumb:
Cool weather Flowers for a cut flower garden
Iceland Poppies
Bachelors buttons
Larkspur
Narcissus
Tulips
Stock
Snapdragons
warm weather Flowers for a cutting garden
Amaranth
Basil
Celosia
Dahlias
Zinnias
Flowers come in many different forms, and so do their propagules (I love that word). Most seeds are relatively straightforward. Stick them in some moist dirt, and they will grow. For seeds that are challenging (like lisianthus or Iceland poppy) or for perennials, buy them from your local nursery.
Narcissus, tulips, and lilies come as bulbs. Tulips need at least six weeks of cold to grow well. Put them in your cooler if the weather won't give you that. Ranunculus and anemones grow from corms. Dahlias grow from tubers. Bulbs, corms, and tubers can rot if they get too much water before they wake up and grow roots. Some wonderful plants (chrysanthemums and mint are favorites) grow easily from cuttings.
Large Seed Flat
Advanced Seed Starting—Successfully Growing a Cut Flower Garden
When you get hooked, you will likely want fancy seed flats (72s are super versatile). But for those just starting out, use a pot from the plant nursery and space the seeds out so they will be relatively easy to tease apart later when you are ready to plant them in the ground.
A saucer underneath and a cover above helps keep things moist until the seeds germinate. After that, get those babies under grow lights. You will need to harden them off before you plant them by exposing them at increasing intervals to the less forgiving environment outside. Baby plants get shocked by extreme changes in their surroundings, so be gentle. They will reward you later!
Tools for Your Beginner Cut Flower Garden
While there are obvious tools you’ll need (like a shovel), this listing covers some of the less obvious ones.
Gardeners' comfort is a must—I swear by pants with knee pads or get a foam kneeler.
A hori-hori knife is an all-purpose weeder, digger, and cutter. I use mine daily.
A seed square or twine and a long ruler help me get the proper spacing and (mostly) straight rows.
I'm crazy about Tubtrugs! I use them for all kinds of things.
A good pair of gloves helps a lot. I like nitrile gloves that are inexpensive and thin enough that I can still feel things.
If you plan to start some seeds and live in a cold climate, you will need some grow lights to get the seedlings ready for post-frost planting.
Tools
Protect Your Cut Flower Garden from Critters
It also bears mentioning that you will need ways to protect your flowers from critters. I grow organically, so that limits some of my choices.
The best pest control is prevention. Being a keen observer of your plants allows you to catch things in the early stages when simple methods (like insecticidal soap sprays or handpicking) can still be effective.
Sometimes you give your harvest over to caterpillars, and then you get butterflies! Sometimes you just wait until next year. Seedlings are particularly vulnerable. Sluggo Plus is an organic product that deters pill bugs and slugs from eating your babies. I don't have to deal with deer or rabbits here, but there are many resources for people who do. I hear a good fence or a dog can do wonders.
List of Flowers for a Cutting Garden (In Order From Winter Bloomers to Fall Bloomers)
Something to remember is that all things worth doing take time! Planting a cutting garden is a rewarding task with lots of trial and error—and beautiful wins.
I've killed more plants than most people will ever grow and what makes my garden magical is that I keep at it. Don't give up! To get you inspired to take your first steps at growing, here is a shortlist of flowers in order from winter bloomers to fall to help you follow the seasons and make your arrangements sparkle:
Hellebores (plant in dappled shade)
Ranunculus and anemones
Cerinthe aka Honeywort
Narcissus and tulips
Snapdragons
Bachelor's Buttons (in SO many amazing colors)
Scabiosa (dark knight is a beautiful color, stellata has amazing seed heads)
Roses (choose a variety for your climate)
Cosmos
Basil
Zinnias
Sunflowers (cover the freshly planted seeds or birds will eat them)
Love in a Puff vine
Celosia
Amaranth
Dahlias
Grasses
Chrysanthemums
I hope this helps you get over any trepidation about growing. The most important thing is just to start. You will learn new things every year and produce beautiful flowers—even from your less successful attempts. Making arrangements with flowers you grow is pure joy. Get growing!
