You’ve waited all winter so cherish your spring garden before it comes and goes too quickly. When you grow a cut flower garden that blooms in the spring, you’ll have enough flowers to fill your beds and borders outside, your vases inside — and maybe even the homes of your friends and neighbors.
Here is some important info to help you grow and harvest your best cut flower garden. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page for three plant combos perfect for creating dreamy spring (and summer) cutting gardens.
See also Design Ideas
How to arrange your cut flower garden
Design the garden the same way you would design an arrangement of cut flowers. Use tall blooming flowers in the center of the bed or in the back if planting in a border. To contrast the vertical shape of the flower spikes, surround the tall plants with round, solid-shaped bloomers, such as the scabiosa, allium and corn poppy in the photos below. This way every bloom gets a chance to show off their alluring beauty — and practice for their role in the vase.
You might also like our Container Ideas
How to harvest fresh flowers from the garden
If you’re hesitant to clip your blossoms for fear of leaving your garden bare, know that cutting many of these plants — corn poppies, delphiniums, snapdragon and lupines — will encourage more blooms to form.
It’s frustrating to bring your garden’s flowers inside only to have them quickly wilt and waste. Good news: You can prevent this! Follow these tips:
- Harvest flowers in the morning when temperatures are cool.
- Bring a bucket of lukewarm water and a clean, sharp cutting tool to the garden with you.
- For stems with multiple flowers, make sure at least one bud is showing color and close to blooming; for stems with one flower, cut when the flower is just barely in bloom.
- Immerse the cut ends into the bucket right away.
- Before arranging, cut the stems again, but this time under water and at a 45-degree angle.
