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Flowers Just for Cutting

Rosie Lerner, Purdue Consumer Horticulture Specialist

Released 18 March 1999

Many gardeners like to cut flowers from their garden to brighten up the home, cheer a friend or bring a bit of color to the office. But often, it's a challenge to selectively cut from the flower bed without taking away from the beauty of the outdoor display.

So why not plant a separate garden, one in which the location and design are geared only toward providing cut flowers? It's similar to planning a vegetable garden for harvest, only in this case the crop is flowers.

If possible, locate your cutting garden near the house and a water source, but removed from general view of the landscape so that you won't feel restrained by formal garden design. Actually, planting your cutting flowers near or in the vegetable garden is not a bad idea; both need frequent visits for maintenance and harvesting.

As you draw your plan on paper, don't worry so much about design principles; however, you should jot down the expected height of the plants, so that all get the light they need for good flower production. Your main goal is to plan for something to be in bloom at all times.

You can mix annual and perennial flowers together in the bed. Most annuals will bloom all season. A selection of perennials can be carefully planned to provide bloom all season. For plants with a short season of bloom, such as nigella, scabiosa and gladiolus, allow enough space for successive plantings.

Maintenance of the cutting garden will consist mostly of watering, weeding, and insect and disease control. Use a mulch around the plants to help keep weeds down and to conserve soil moisture. Keep flowers picked often and remove dead flower heads to encourage more blooming. You may need to stake tall plants to prevent stems from breaking in storms or to maintain a straight stem for flower arranging.

Harvest flowers early in morning while stems and petals are full of water (turgid). Choose buds in color or recently opened blooms to provide the longest-lasting flowers for your arrangement. Use a sharp knife or special floral snips to cut your blooms. Regular household scissors tend to crush the stem.

Place the cut flowers in water immediately&emdash;warm is best for most flowers&emdash;then place in a cool location for 24 hours. Keep the blooms out of bright sunlight and wind.

Recut the stems and remove lower leaves just before placing in a vase or arrangement. There is some controversy over whether floral preservatives are effective on garden flowers. It isn't likely to hurt and may help prolong floral life, so why not give it a try?

Keep a cutting garden journal throughout the season, so that you can make notes of when the various plants bloomed, which ones provided the most color for the space they consumed and particularly note if there were times when color was a bit lacking. Then, you'll know just what changes you want to make for next year's garden.

Last updated: 10 April 2006
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