The Cutting Garden

If there’s one thing that I enjoy more than looking at the flowers in my garden, it’s looking at a bouquet of flowers I’ve created from flowers cut from my garden. The bouquets vary from one season to the next, of course, and sometimes even one week to the next as the progression of blooms marches through the gardening season.

Holly fern, snap dragons, echinacea, catnip, coreopsis, Shasta daisy, pincushion flower, roses and pink yarrow.

Right now, in mid-May, my garden is full of cuttable treasures. I have six different kinds of roses, mostly pink and mostly the “low maintenance” variety. Although I love the more traditional roses as much as anyone, I’m just not willing to give them the chemical support that they so often need. In my garden, they only get the bare necessities of sunshine and water.

Roses have hit their peak. Once the blooms fade, I’ll cut them back and get another round of blooms in a few weeks.

I have a lot of pink things in my garden right now. Pink yarrow, which began to bloom in earnest about a week ago, looks gorgeous alongside the roses and dark reddish-pink snapdragons. The pink blooms of spirea look especially pretty against their bright yellow / green leaves.

Golden leaf spirea is a shrub that puts out fuzzy pink blooms early in the summer. The cut branches look great in an arrangement.
I planted snapdragons last fall and patiently waited until they burst into glorious bloom in early April. I have white and yellow snapdragons as well as this red.
Pink yarrow gets floppy when it doesn’t receive enough sunlight but in full sun, it’s a splendid plant that will produce blooms for many weeks.

Both catnip and pincushion flower have both offered up boucoups of blossoms this spring and have stems long enough to make them a welcomed addition to a bouquet. The added advantage to cutting these blossoms is that if you cut enough, the plants will generally bloom again later in the season.

Pincushion (above) and coreopsis (below)

Daisy-like blooms come from Shasta daisy, yellow coreopsis and Echinacea, which I have both in white and a pale pink form.

White daisies last a long time as a cut flower and are easy to grow.

The best time to cut flowers is early in the morning when they are rested and full of moisture from the night. Once the sun comes up, they will begin to lose moisture. I try to put the cut stems into water as soon as possible.

Earlier in the season I put small violas, million bells, forget me nots, cowslips and Columbine in small vases.

AS this cutting season fades, I look toward the next round of flowers, which includes favorite perennials such as summer phlox, bee balm, black-eyed Susans, hydrangeas and Japanese aster, as well as annuals such as apricot cosmos and lime green zinnias. Come on by – I’ll pick you a bouquet. Can’t wait!

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Jeanne Fredericks
Jeanne Fredericks
3 years ago

Many of these flowers are my favorites too, and you’ve given me some ideas for new ones to try as well. Thanks!