Love Fresh Bouquets? How to Start a Cut Flower Garden Full of Your Favorite Blooms

If you enjoy vases full of flowers in your home without stripping your flower beds bare, you need a cut flower garden. What could be better than a constant rotation of fresh bouquets, with blooms you grew yourself?

We’ve put together some of the basic steps to get you started and how you can enjoy flower arrangements from your garden nearly year-round.

Why Start a Cut Flower Garden?

A lot of work goes into creating a beautiful flower garden. If you want to enjoy your efforts with floral arrangements, you’re likely to end up with some bare garden spots unless you specifically plan for your flowers to be cut. An added benefit of a cut flower garden is it attracts pollinators to your yard.

Depending on your USDA hardiness zone, starting a cut flower garden can bring you nearly year-round flowers for arrangements.

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How to Plan a Cut Flower Garden

When planning a cut flower garden, always keep in mind that the intention is to remove many of the blooms when they arrive; be sure to anticipate a few bald spots here and there when this happens.

Location and Layout

The site should have good drainage to prevent root rot and receive full sun since most flowering plants need at least six hours of sunlight per day. Flowers can be grown in rows like traditional vegetable gardens, in raised beds, or in containers.

Be sure you can easily access each different type of flower for cutting. Consider the height of the plants are you’re seeding—you don’t want the shorter plants to be shadowed by the tall ones because they won’t get enough sunshine and it will be more difficult to reach them for cutting.

Another layout choice is placing the plants in the order they are expected to bloom: early season, mid-season, or later in the season. You can also try to avoid bare patches by interspersing flowers with different bloom times within the same beds.

Selecting Plants

Fill your cut flower garden with the flowers you like! If you’re a sunflower worshipper or lavender lover, plant them. As you are selecting plants for your garden, just consider those that are specifically bred with long, strong stems for cutting. Seed packets often indicate these selections with a scissors icon. Some flower varieties are too short for most vases or won’t last long once they are cut.

Don’t forget to plant some non-blooming plants for their beautiful foliage. Ferns, ornamental grasses, coleuses, dusty millers, ornamental kale, and herbs, like basil and dill, make great fillers for arrangements.

It is a good idea to group plants by their light, soil, and water needs. Grouping plants with similar growing requirements will help you give them all exactly what they need and help prevent over or under-watering.

Many gardeners choose annuals because they tend to grow quickly and bloom throughout the season. However, perennials and flowering shrubs can be the backbone of your garden because they will come back year after year and provide foliage even when there are no blooms.

Flowers to Add to a Cut Flower Garden

As you select plants for your cut flower garden, study plant characteristics online or in seed catalogs before you plant. Look for varieties that will perform well in your growing zone and varieties that will hold up well once they are cut and arranged.

Spring Blooms

Summer Blooms

Fall Blooms

Winter Blooms and Berries