Beginner’s Guide to Growing Cut Flowers
20+ varieties, tips for planning, and basic information for successful growing
What is a cut flower?
A cut flower is a flower grown to be harvested for bouquets and flower arrangements. Cut flowers are usually known for their long vase life (how long a bloom stays alive after being cut), colorful or dramatic blooms, long stems, unique foliage, or all of the above. Cut flowers can be perennials (plant comes back year after year), annuals (planted every year), bulbs, tubers, or rhizomes. A diverse cut flower garden will bloom from early spring through your first fall frost and have a variety of colors, textures, and sizes, creating unique and beautiful displays.
Benefits of Growing Cut Flowers
I started growing cut flowers when we moved to our home five years ago. I started by accepting any plants people would give me. We now have a small rose garden, most of the bushes being transplanted from my childhood home before my parents sold it. We have daylilies that the florist at Josh’s work let him bring home after they weren’t bought during an Easter sale. We have hydrangeas that were left for dead. Irises. Gladiolus. Peony. Dahlias. I have built quite a collection over the years by taking a chance on unwanted and near-dead plants. The result has become somewhat of an obsession.
My Friday mornings from May through October are spent walking around our property in my pajamas with my daughter, a bucket or basket, some snips, and a cup of coffee. We collect foliage, branches, blooms and buds and then make 2-3 bouquets together on our back patio. It’s such a centering, mind-clearing way to start my day. I mourn these days when the frost hits and look forward to them as the weather warms again in the spring almost as much as I do the time spent in the vegetable garden.
Cut flowers are an essential part of a diverse ecosystem in your garden. They attract pollinators and provide food for them. Pollinators are great for our veggie gardens because they, as in the name, pollinate our crops. They also feed on damaging insects and subsequently help protect our crops from pests. The fragrance of cut flowers helps to deter mammalian pests, like deer, rabbits, and raccoons.
I was surprised to learn that many of my favorite cut flowers have edible flowers, leaves, stems and even roots. I’ll jump at any chance to increase our food security, and see it as a major bonus that growing beautiful flowers that quite honestly bring me bliss is a win-win. Amaranth is the ultimate winner - with flowers used as tea, leaves as salad, stems in stir-fry, and seeds as grain, the whole thing is edible! Oh, and it’s a dramatic show-stopper in a bouquet!
20 Beginner-Friendly Cut Flower Varieties
We expanded our cut flower garden last year by adding four new raised beds. We also added a few spots around our property to grow in containers and added to existing borders. I’ve grown a lot of different flowers, but these are my top recommendations for a diverse bouquet that will showcase a lot of different colors, fun textures or unique foliage for fillers, and different-sized blooms. These recommendations are among the easiest I’ve grown. As a beginner, you don’t need to figure out a fussy cut flower in addition to planning and setting up a brand-new garden!
Amaranth: Amaranth is an annual, dramatic, cascading flower that has origins as an ancient grain. I used this plant as salad, grain, and flower last season. I gave some away for dyeing projects as well. It’s also really easy to grow! Amaranth can grow tall, but can be pruned or cut for bouquets regularly to keep the size down. I start amaranth indoors and transplant it in late May. This cut flower blooms from early summer through fall.
Asters: Asters are a native flower to the US in many regions and come in many different varieties. The flowers resemble daisies and come in a lot of colors and sizes. Some varieties may be perennials or self-sow (drop seeds and grow the following year). Asters are great fillers, with hearty, but small flowers. Asters will bloom late summer through first fall frost (and maybe beyond!).
Bachelor Buttons: Bachelor Buttons are fun, sweet flowers that will add a lot personality to your bouquets. This cut flower is often planted as a seed in the fall and will start growing in the spring. If cut regularly, it will have a long blooming period. Bachelor Buttons have long skinny stems that can be somewhat delicate, but they are great accent flowers in bouquets. They come in many different colors. Bachelor Buttons are annual cut flowers but they can sometimes self-sow.
Calendula: Calendula is another cut flower that is also edible. Calendula even has medicinal properties. The flowers are similar to daisies, usually in yellow or orange tones. The flowers can be dried and used in herbal preparations, commonly for skincare, but add a beautiful pop of color to bouquets with their vibrant and full blooms. Calendula is an annual that blooms summer through fall.
Catmint: Catmint is a perennial that is great in full or part sun areas of your garden. It will spread each year to provide a really low-maintenance ground cover. I love using it in our bouquets for a fun filler. When in bloom it has a lavender-like flower. A member of the mint family, it is fragrant!
Celosia: Celosia is one of my favorite annual cut flowers to grow. It comes in a few varieties, some flowers with feathery tops and others in tight bunches with brain-like folds. Celosia is a great accent flower in bouquets and will provide full season blooms when regularly cut.
Coneflower: Coneflower, or echinacea is a perennial cut flower that is also known for it’s medicinal properties. The flowers can be cut and added to bouquets or dried for an immunity-boosting tea. The flowers have daisy-like petals that point away from the center, which sticks out in a cone shape, hence the name coneflower. I have some coral coneflowers that are vibrant and provide a unique color to our bouquets.
Cosmos: Cosmos are an annual flower with a lot of personality. They come in a variety of colors, have frilly leaves, and delicate flowers. Cosmos love sun and will grow very tall, so accept that they will flop and impede walkways or plan for a trellis. Cosmos will bloom mid-summer to frost (based on my experience growing in zone 6). My favorite variety to grow is sea shell cosmos - the petals are cup-like and the flowers hold up a little better in bouquets.
Craspedia: Craspedia are probably the most fun-looking cut flowers. They are an annual that provides yellow ball-shaped blooms that add give bouquets a whimsy vibe.
Daffodils: Daffodils are fall-planted bulbs that bloom in early spring. I love growing daffodils because they give us the earliest blooms. There are a lot of varieties to choose from, ranging from white, to pale yellow, to orange. We planted 100 bulbs of a naturalizer variety last fall, which we leave in place and allow them to spread, hence naturalizing the area in which they were planted, from year to year. This is a great low-maintenance way to ensure early spring blooms year after year!
Dahlias: I feel like a broken record because I keep saying each flower is my favorite, but dahlias really are a joy to grow. Dahlias grow from tubers, so each year you dig up the stem and root (tuber) in the fall around the first frost and save them to replant the following spring. The tubers multiply each season, giving you more and more flowers to grow or gift. Dahlias are show stoppers in bouquets due to their size, color, geometric shape, and long vase life. Dahlias will bloom mid to late summer through fall. Dahlias grow pretty tall so I recommend growing along a fence or trellis so you can easily tie them up!
Daisies: Mainy daisy varieties are perennials, coming back each spring with even more gusto. Daisies are a bush-like plant with many blooms. Daisies love full sun and have low watering needs, so are pretty easy to maintain!
Hydrangeas: Hydrangeas are a perennial flower that add a lot of texture and volume to bouquets. There are a lot of different varieties, ranging from bushes to trees and all sorts of colors. Hydrangeas are a really low maintenance perennial plant that look great in front yard gardens. Most varieties will bloom during summer months.
Lilies: Lilies are grown from a bulb. Once you plant one, you’ll have exponentially more in a few years. Many of the lilies that we have on our homestead were discounted plants from the grocery store after easter - yes, you can plant those! There are a lot of varieties of lilies, but my favorite for bouquets are daylilies. They bloom for a long time as well!
Marigolds: Marigolds are an annual plant that is a great companion to your vegetable garden. These bright, fluffy flowers are super fragrant and help to deter mammalian pests like deer. Marigolds often have short stems, which makes them hard to incorporate in a big bouquet. I love using them in bud vases for small spaces like the bathroom.
Peony: Peonies are one of the earliest cut flowers in spring. They are a perennial flowering bush that has HUGE dramatic blooms. It may take a few years for the plant to establish, but once it gets going it will produce for many years. The flowering period is short for peonies, but the bushes make great border plants and the greenery looks nice throughout the summer and fall.
Poppies: Another early blooming cut flower is the Poppy. Poppies have paper-like petals and give a very whimsy look to bouquets. Poppy seeds can be planted in the fall or early spring as an annual flower but they often self-seed, meaning they will drop their own seeds and will grow the following year. This is still considered an annual, but saves you the work!
Roses: Roses are THE cut flower, right? It took me growing my own to fall in love with roses because they have always seems so traditional to me. Not my typical vibe. Many of the roses we grow came from my childhood house and I think that connection alone has made me cherish them. We have a small rose garden along the side of our house with about 10 bushes. Roses can add some personality to your gardens through climbing varieties, multiple colors and sizes of buds, and beautiful trellises or supports.
Strawflower: Strawflowers are long-lasting cut flowers for bouquets. They are exactly as the name suggests, straw-like petals. They have a beautiful ombre effect to them and are great for drying. You can hang them upside down in a cool dark spot and use them throughout the winter to add color and life to your home.
Sunflowers: Here I go again…another favorite. Sunflowers have always been my favorite. I can’t even remember how young I was when I started loving them. My mom helped me plant small patches of sunflowers every year. She still sends me seeds on my birthday (the first day of spring). My first tattoo is of a sunflower! In bouquets, sunflowers are show stoppers. It’s hard for any other flower to compete with the tall and sturdy stems, the giant blooms and the vibrant colors. Sunflowers are annuals but can sometimes self-seed.
Tulips: Tulips are early bloomers, typically around for Easter. Tulips are another cut flower grown from a bulb. You can leave the bulbs planted from year to year or you can dig them up after the foliage starts to fade. Bulbs are planted in the fall for an early spring bloom. Tulips have cup like flowers that come in many different colors, they make for beautiful bouquets on their own.
Zinnias: You can’t have a cut flower garden without zinnias. Zinnias are the queens of cut flowers for their long blooming period, long stems, and long vase life. The flowers come in many colors and sizes, even fun varieties like the candy-stripe that has actual stripes in them. Zinnias are super easy to grow for long season blooms and fun bouquets all season!
Now that you have a list of cut flower varieties to start with, I’ll share how I plan out our growing spaces.
Planning a Cut Flower Garden
Planning a cut flower garden is very similar to planning a vegetable garden. First, you need to pick a location and determine the size of your garden. Next, you need to decide how you are planting. Finally, choose what to grow! Let’s dig into these considerations a bit further…
Choosing a Location for Your Cut Flower Garden
Sun: Most cut flowers LOVE a lot of sun. A trick we light to use when planning a new garden space is to tape a piece of paper on the window and write down how sunny the proposed location is every few hours. You should be able to quickly estimate how many hours of sunlight your new garden will get per day by tallying up your notes. You should aim for 6 hours at the very least, ideally closer to 8 or 10 hours! Pay attention to trees that may not have leaves now, and slight changes in the direction of the sun in the summer (closer to NE/SW at summer solstice than due E/W at equinoxes).
Water: Water is an important factor when planning any garden. If you plan a garden at the bottom of a hill or slope you may want to consider raised beds, berms and swales, or hügelkultur. Otherwise, your new garden may get flooded during heavy rains. On the other hand, having easy access to water is a must for getting plants established in spring and early summer. Many cut flowers are successful at growing in wild places (hence the name wildflowers) and can therefore survive mostly off of rainwater depending on your climate, but best to make sure they’re getting sufficient water when planting from seed or after transplanting. Oyas are a great option for smaller beds since they are a set-it-and-forget-it watering system. You bury the clay pot, fill it with water, and it will slowly release water to the soil which can be directly used by roots of neighboring plants. It’s a sustainable option that’s great for cut flower gardens!
Size: The size of your garden is definitely going to affect where you are able to put it, or maybe the perfect location will dictate the size of your garden. Many of our gardens have been dictated more by the size of the raised beds we wanted to build, careful consideration of walkway size (4’ in our main garden to easily fit a wheelbarrow, smaller in the flower garden because it’s just foot traffic!).
Choosing How to Plant Your Cut Flower Garden
Growing Space: This may be directly related to the location you choose, but deciding whether you’re growing in ground, in rows, using no dig methods, in raised beds, or in a collection of containers is going to help inform what you will grow. This may depend on time. If you have poor soil but want to plant immediately, raised beds are a great option. Lay down some cardboard, add a raised bed, fill it with quality soil and plant those cut flowers! If you’re planning the garden for months or even a year out, many no dig or no till methods of killing grass and building soil through compost are great low cost options!
Physical Supports: Some cut flowers, like sweet pea or dahlias will benefit from a trellis, being grown along a deck or fence, or companion planting in a way that they can grow up neighboring plants. Consider these factors when planning your garden size and how you will plant as some trellises and vertical supports will be easier to implement if part of the plan from the beginning.
Choosing Which Cut Flowers to Grow
Colors: Consider different colors. Planting different varieties of the same cut flowers will benefit your garden because you will be less likely to lose everything if a disease or pest takes over. Pollinators are attracted to a variety of colors and will help increase the number of blooms you have. And, obviously, a bright and varied bouquet is the goal of a cut flower garden!
Sizes: The most appealing bouquets have a beautiful blend of dramatic blooms and small filler flowers that add texture and facilitate a full appearance. Choose a variety of different-sized blooms when planning what cut flowers to grow.
Shapes: Similarly to size, having multiple shapes of flowers helps create a diverse and beautiful bouquet. You can more easily create a cascading bouquet or other eye-catching flower arrangements when you have differently shaped flowers to work with. Don’t limit yourself to thinking about the flowers though. I LOVE using cosmo greens in my bouquets even if they don’t have flowers on them. They are frilly and whimsy (clearly a vibe I adore), providing a lot of personality to a bouquet.
Tips for Growing & Maintaining Cut Flowers
Just like growing vegetables, growing cut flowers will require basic garden maintenance. Start with soil that is rich in organic matter or mix in some compost when planting. Fertilize throughout the season to feed the plants, resulting in vibrant blooms. Weed your garden regularly to help the soil retain moisture and provide less competition for nutrients to your flowers.
An easy way to prolong the blooming season of your cut flowers is to deadhead them. You can do this by hand by plucking off the dead blooms that were left on the plant, or grab some garden snips (recommended for roses due to thorns) and snip them off. Deadheading cut flowers tells the plant to put more energy into producing more blooms. If you leave the dead flowers on, the plant receives a signal that it’s all done producing flowers. I’ve seen this work wonders on plants I thought for sure were goners. A few snips and a couple days later and there was so much new growth!
Tips for Extending Vase Life
We grow cut flowers because they bring us joy and are a great way to spread that joy outside the walls of our homesteads through bouquets. There are a lot of tricks for extending vase life of flowers, I’ll just share my process and what has worked well for me.
Starting with cutting the flowers, I ALWAYS cut them early in the morning. The flowers are less stressed and more likely to hold onto their petals during the bouquet making process when cut early before the strong sun hits them. I carry a bucket of water with me and add each cut stem to the water. Most of the time, I build my bouquets immediately. If not, most flowers will like being refrigerated. Zinnias are an exception, they would prefer room temp or hot summer weather over being stuffed into a fridge.
Once in a vase, you can add things like citric acid, lemon juice, or even sprite to help keep flowers and the water fresh. I usually just change out the water every 3-5 days, and pull out any flowers or stems that are starting to get mushy or sad. Removing the sad flowers will help keep the other flowers fresh.
Now you’re ready to plant a cut flower oasis and have a season of beautiful bouquets!
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