5 Tips for Growing Cut Flowers!

Grow your own Cut Flowers!

Growing cut flowers in home gardens has continued to gain popularity over the past few years. Many gardeners are adding flowers to vegetable gardens to increase diversity and have flowers for bouquets in their homes. Growing your own cut flowers is so rewarding and has a lot of amazing benefits within the garden!  When you are deciding what types of flowers to grow, there are a few key factors to keep in mind!

1. Start small and simple! Once you learn the basics, growing your own cut flowers is quite simple. It is best to start with easy-to- grow flowers such as zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, celosia, and marigolds. Starting with a small patch or designating part of your flower beds to cut flowers can be a great way to get started!
2. Plant in long, narrow rows! Rather than planting in clusters, it is much more beneficial to plant in long, narrow rows which will make maintenance, watering, and harvesting much easier. Whether you are planting from seed or started plants, this will make the process much more efficient.
3. Stagger your plantings! To ensure you have continuous blooms throughout the growing season, be sure to stagger your plantings. Not only should you aim to have some spring, summer, and fall bloomers, also consider planting in 2–3-week intervals to give yourself plenty of beautiful blooms throughout the season. If you plant a new crop of sunflowers every other week starting at the beginning of May, it will allow you to have new blooms to harvest much later into the season.
4. Don't forget the greenery! When growing cut flowers to make bouquets and arrangements, it is important to have some ‘filler’. We all love the big, colorful blooms, but without some greenery it can be difficult to make a complete design. Try things like Bells of Ireland, Basil, Bee Balm, Eucalyptus and many more!
5. Cut flowers in early morning or evening! When it is finally time to harvest, cut your stems in early morning or late evening when it is coolest. This helps to prevent putting extra stress on not only the stems you are cutting, but the remainder of the plant. This will also help extend the vase life of your flowers as it keeps them healthier.

Best Cut Flower Varieties

Looking for some easy to grow annual flowers? Here are a few that we recommend!

Sunrich Orange and Sunrich Lemon Sunflowers! These pollen free varieties are great as cut flowers. Growing about 3-4’ tall, they have strong, straight stems that are ideal for use in mixed bouquets or simple sunflower bunches. They are fast growing and extremely easy to care for!

Flamingo Celosia! This beautiful plume type celosia produces silvery to pink blooms that may remind you of a paintbrush! With unique color, they are a great “spike” element to add into any bouquet.

Sensation Mixed Cosmos! Cosmos are extremely easy to grow and produce lots of green foliage, perfect for creating a base for bouquets. This mix has white, light pink, and dark pink blooms that can add softness to arrangements.

Gomphrena! Also known as Globe Amaranth, this variety produces perfectly round 1” pompoms of white, pink, and purple flowers. They make a wonderful addition to both fresh-cut and dried arrangements.

Zinnias! We have so many beautiful zinnia varieties that it is hard to narrow down which to grow. Whether you would like a mix or a single color there are so many great options available. If you like a lot of different colors, the State Fair mix is a great option. We also have several unique colors such as the Envy Green and the Canary Bird Yellow!

Craspedia! Also known as the drumstick flower, Craspedia grows on long silvery green stems with compact 1” golden globes on top. This makes a great addition to fresh bouquets and can be used as dried flower!

Strawflower!  Also known as Helichrysum, this is an extremely unique flower that produces a mix of pink, yellow, orange, and white papery flowers. A great addition to late summer and fall bouquets!

If you are interested in learning more about growing cut flowers, please reach out to us through social media, or send us an email at info@rohrerseeds.com!