It’s the height of summer and a good time to talk about some practical cut flower garden tips.  If you’re new or have struggled to grow healthy flowers, these tips might help you turn that around.  We’re dishing today on the things we’ve we’ve learned through trial and error over the last ten years.

We know the disappointment of planting flowers only to watch them struggle.  We know, too, the delight of a garden that’s doing well.  Planting cut flowers is a ton of work, and we’re here to help you make those hours in the garden count.  We want your garden to thrive.

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Plant in the right spot

The first thing to get right is to plant your seeds or seedlings where they will be happiest. Most plants prefer rich, well-drained soil. Some plants like yarrow and Russian sage, as well as many herbs, do just fine in poorer soil, but generally plant your crops into loose, rich soil for a bumper crop. A few things to note about the plant tag recommendations for if a plant prefers full or part sun:

• If a plant prefers full sun, make sure it gets 6 or more hours of direct sunlight every day.
• If a plant prefers part sun, give it 4-6 hours of direct sun every day, including afternoon sun.
• If a plant prefers part shade, give it 4-6 hours of mostly morning sunlight every day.
• If a plant prefers full shade, give it less than 4 hours of direct sunlight a day.

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Amend your soil

Most gardens can benefit from adding organic matter in the form of compost or leaf mulch to improve the productivity and health of your soil. It can help to loosen clay soil and will add organic matter to sandy soils, improving water retention. I like to amend the soil after I’ve cleared the garden in the fall. In my new garden with lots of clay, I took time to work some of the compost into the top several inches so it could improve the soil over winter.

This is one of those cut flower garden tips that may not seem quite as obvious at first, but it’s done so much to improve our gardens.  We’ve found that adding organic matter over time can transform poor soil into something rich and beautiful that plants love.

Another tip to improve your soil is to do a soil test, especially if your plants seem to be struggling. Then add fertilizer only where your garden is lacking.

Use irrigation

Every zone and climate is different, but there will probably come a time during your growing season where you will need to spend some time watering as you wait for the rains to return. While watering with a hose and wand is always an option, we’ve found that irrigation controlled by a timer takes the pressure off of us as gardeners.

We love the drip irrigation from Dripworks (use coupon code RDESIGN for 5% off your order) because it gets water right to the roots of the plants where it is needed and is great for situations where you need to conserve water. If you want to know more about setting up drip irrigation, check out this YouTube video.

Overhead watering is also an option but takes more water and can contribute to the spread of disease. There are some who claim overhead watering reduces the threat of mildew on your zinnias and dahlias, but we have not tested that theory.  A watering wand works well for any hand watering you may need to do.

Mulch when plants are small

Weeds are a gardener’s bane, but if you mulch when your plants are young you can save yourself a lot of work. Mulch gives your plants a head start helping to suppress the weeds until the plants get large enough to crowd them out. It also helps in retaining water, stopping erosion, and shading the plant roots to keep them cool. Garden soil can harbor disease, so mulch provides a barrier and prevents it from splashing up onto the plant.

We use compost, grass clippings, shredded leaves, leaf compost, and straw. Very fine composted wood chips can work as well. Larger wood chips should be reserved for areas that don’t get tilled up. Incorporating too much bark mulch in your soil can upset the balance of nutrients.

Support tall plants

Most plants that grow taller than 2’ will probably need to be supported in some way, and some smaller plants like lisianthus and phlox will need to be supported. Plant flop has likely killed more of my plants than any pest or disease. We use a quick and easy method using hortenova netting and t posts for the majority of our staking. For vining plants we like to create a cattle panel archway for them to grow on, and we’ve also run this size hortenova vertically to make a trellis.

For really tall plants you may need to add a second layer of hortenova, or you could just run poly twine around the outside of the bed to corral the tall stems.

Pinch your plants for more blooms

Pinching your plants means cutting out the center stem to encourage the plant to branch low to the ground. This will increase the number of stems you’ll get. As a general rule of thumb, I wait until there are 3 or 4 sets of true leaves on the plant before pinching them. Zinnias, cosmos, snapdragons, and dahlias are examples of some flowers that can benefit from pinching.

Some flowers like procut sunflowers only produce one bloom so don’t pinch those.

Deadhead for more blooms

To keep your repeat flowering and fruiting crops going all season, plan to deadhead spent blooms every week. Once a flower goes to seed it can signal to the plant that it is time to quit producing new blooms. Keep them cut to keep them coming.

When deadheading or even when harvesting, don’t be afraid to cut deeply into the plant. This can feel counterintuitive, but the plant will produce better or more useable stems in the future.  Here’s our favorite garden snips for cutting blooms.

Don’t overcrowd, and do overcrowd

The back of your seed packet will tell you how close or far apart to space your seeds or seedlings. We recommend following the recommended spacing guide for vegetables, but when it comes to flowers, occasionally breaking the rules can give you longer stems and enables you to pack more plants into your square footage, thereby maximizing your space.

We crowd our lisianthus, celosia, and basil to name a few, but give the zinnias, dahlias, and cosmos plenty of space to grow tall and bushy.

That’s a roundup of our most useful cut flower garden tips.  Hopefully you’ll find something helpful that will make gardening a little easier for you.

Cheers!

Rosita