Cutting Garden Favorites

Cutting bouquets of flowers is one of my greatest pleasures. From the first daffodils of April until the last little violas in November, I love assembling whatever is in bloom into bouquets for my home, office, or friends.

With over 1,000 square feet of perennial gardens, I have no shortage of flowers. But it wasn't until I planted a cutting garden that it really seemed like I had a good supply for bouquets. That's partly because for me, the flowers in my perennial borders are hard to part with. But it's also because I find it challenging to work big, bold flowers such as peonies, delphiniums, lilies, and bearded iris, into casual mixed bouquets.

In my cutting garden, I can walk through the rows picking anything in sight, and when I'm done, I invariably have an instant, no-fuss bouquet. Because these flowers are annuals, cutting them often is helpful, and even necessary if I want to keep them blooming until frost.

My cutting garden is divided into five 2½ X 32-ft. raised beds. The paths are lined with landscape fabric and covered with shredded bark mulch. The beds themselves are planted so thickly that after one early-season weeding, there's not a spare inch for weeds.

Since I'd need to buy at least 300 plants to fill the garden, I start almost everything myself from seed. This also lets me grow many varieties that are difficult if not impossible to find at local nurseries. The seeds usually get sown in 6" x 10" Kord fiber flats. Once the seedlings have a couple sets of leaves, I transplant them into 6-packs or PaperPots. (I have great success with PaperPots.) When the transplants get set out into the garden mid-May, I usually interplant three compatible varieties in each row; they support each other and it makes every bed look like a living bouquet.

My current cutting garden favorites:

• Matricaria 'White Wonder': Small, bright white, 1/2" mum-like flowers in clusters. Nice foliage. The ultimate filler flower, it goes with everything.
• Ageratum 'Blue Horizon': Purple-blue, fuzzy umbels on strong, 24" stems. This tall ageratum is now offered in white and rose as well, and I'll probably add both colors.
• Antirrhinum 'White Rocket': Every few years I try growing snapdragons in mixed colors, but I always go back to white.
• Zinnias: These are the backbone of any cutting garden. I usually plant 'Summer Pinafore' and either 'Lilliput' or 'Sunbow'.
• Ammi majus: This looks much like wild Queen Anne's lace, but it's far more delicate and makes a fantastic filler, weaving most any flowers into a professional-looking bouquet.
• Salvia horminium: A great plant with either deep purple, pink, or white colored bracts. The stiff stems add a good vertical line and they last for weeks in a vase.
• Phlox drummondi 'Tapestry': This mix includes a dozen different old-fashioned colors that remind me of 1940s sundresses. Not very long lasting in a vase, but grow them once and you'll be hooked.

Other favorites:

• Asters: They hate my heavy soil and often die out by mid-August. But I always plant a few. If you can grow asters successfully, they're one of the best cut flowers around.
• Lavatera: Every plant is covered with a dozen or more silky, white or pink cups. The blossoms sometimes look a bit tattered up close, but they’re good in large bouquets.
• Euphorbia marginata 'Kilimanjaro': This plant is grown for its showy green and white foliage.
• Centaurea 'Jubilee Gem': A deep-blue bachelor button with a stocky, upright form.
• Sunflowers: There's not enough room for these in my cutting garden, so they get interplanted in the asparagus bed. Since I grow them for cutting, I plant multi-stem varieties.

1. Start your own seedlings. You'll get to grow all the best varieties and have an abundance of seedlings for yourself and to share. Try using PaperPots. They're terrific.

2. Pick your flowers often. The more you pick them, the more flowers the plants will produce. Have more flowers than you can handle? Drop some off at an elderly housing center, hospital, or hospice.

3. Apply a granular all-purpose fertilizer at planting time. Then apply a liquid fertilizer once each month during the growing season.

4. Keep a bunch of 3' bamboo stakes handy to prop plants as needed.

5. No room for a big cutting garden? You can squeeze about 20 plants into a 3' x 6' raised bed. Add a trellis for a backdrop of morning glories and sweetpeas!

Kathy LaLiberte has worked for Gardener's Supply since it began more than 25 years ago. She lives and gardens in Richmond, Vt. Click here to read more of her Innovative Gardener essays.