Keep your cutting garden small, and out of sight, so that you will not hesitate to cut flowers.
A cutting garden offers the best of both worlds: Because it is meant to be plundered — the more you pick, the more it produces — a cutting garden means an endless supply of flowers. While the display beds in your garden bloom undisturbed, you can pick your cutting garden to your heart’s content.
Lisa Ziegler owns The Gardener’s Workshop, a commercial cut-flower farm in Newport News. She encourages customers to think of a cutting garden as a production plot, like your vegetable garden. “Put it in a spot that’s out of sight, like behind the garage,” she advises. “You won’t cut it if you can see it while you’re doing dishes.” Plant in rows for easy maintenance, in a place that gets 6 to 8 hours of sun each day. Group specimens according to size. And keep it small. Ziegler recommends a 3-by-10- or -12-foot plot, for two reasons: First, a small space is easier to weed, feed and harvest. And second, a small plot can be picked clean each week, encouraging more blooms.
Supplement your bouquets with other plants from your yard.
Six Months of Blooms
The key to keeping cut flowers coming for as many as six months out of the year in Central Virginia is succession planting. “You’ll be planting two gardens each year for a continuous supply of flowers,” Ziegler says. “Tender annuals, like zinnias, cockscomb and sunflowers are planted in the spring to bloom in summer. Hardy annuals, like snapdragons, sweet peas and bells of Ireland are planted in the fall to bloom the following spring.”
Optimal Soil
To emphasize the importance of good soil, Ziegler preaches that a plant’s performance is a direct reflection of where it’s rooted: “If you’re having trouble in your garden, you’re standing on the problem,” she says. Before you plant, she recommends amending soil with 2 to 3 inches of compost followed by an addition of dry organic fertilizer. After plants are 3 to 5 inches tall, mulch deeply to prevent weeds and retain moisture.
Cut Away
“It sucks the air out of the room,” Ziegler says, laughing, “when I tell people where to make the first cut.” It’s the thing that surprises her audience the most, and it’s one of the most important. “Cut 6 to 8 inches above ground level, right above the bottom two or three side shoots,” she says. As aggressive as that seems, you will be rewarded for your ruthlessness with frequent and bountiful blooms. “A cutting garden’s purpose is to be cut,” she says. Cutting every mature flower in your cutting garden each week keeps annuals producing all season long. When plants stop blooming, pull them out, cultivate the bed and plant new seedlings.
Zinnias are a classic cutting garden flower.
Mix It Up
Ziegler recommends starting with a half-dozen varieties your first year, and building from there. Plant a mix of annuals and perennials, focusing on long-stemmed varieties for easy arranging. Have fun experimenting with different colors, shapes and textures. Zeigler’s favorites are Benary’s Giant Zinnias, Oklahoma Zinnias, Procut Orange Sunflowers, Chief Cockscomb, Celosia Plume Castle Mix, Blue Horizon Ageratum and Fragrant Mrs. Burns’ Lemon Basil. “Stick to proven cut-flower varieties that are tall and long-lasting,” she advises. “Look for the scissors emblem in seed catalogs if you’re not sure.”
And don’t forget to forage in the rest of your yard to supplement your cut flowers. Hydrangeas and other flowering shrubs, cherry and magnolia trees, and fragrant herbs such as mint make excellent additions to your arrangements, while ornamental grasses and succulents add shape, color and texture.
Susan Higgins is corporate and foundation relations director at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. She writes about what she learns and loves in the garden.
