If you want to start growing flowers, but feel overwhelmed by the choices, try these beautiful blooms for your cut-flower garden. I’ve grown them all and love how easy they are to grow and care for.
We’ll talk about my favorite flowers to grow for beginners, I’ll explain why I like each one, and give some flower harvesting tips.
Two Quick Tips Before We Start
Before you start making your list of seeds, choose a color palette for your bouquets. There are so many gorgeous colors to choose from, and it can get overwhelming, especially if you shop online.
Having a color palette will help you get a designer look to your bouquets (and your garden).
Search Pinterest for flower arrangements and pin your favorites. Focus on identifying the colors in the bouquets and mimicking them in your flower seed choices.
I started this Pinterest board of color palettes for inspiration.
Of course, if you just love color, try to get mixes of all the colors to get the most vibrant look to your cut flowers!
Lastly, be sure to choose flowers that grow 36″ or taller for a cut flower garden.
And if you need help starting a cut-flower garden, you can see my post on how I started my own garden here.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you buy through my links, I could earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only discuss products that I love and think you’ll love, too. I’m glad you’re here and thanks for reading!
10 Easy Flowers for a Cut-Flower Garden
1. Zinnias
Zinnias come in a variety of colors and sizes. They love being direct-sown and grow quickly in warm weather, which is perfect for a home gardener who doesn’t the time or space for indoor seed starting.
I have a whole post on how to grow zinnias if you want to read more.
My favorite zinnias are:
- Queeny Lime series: average-sized zinnias, mostly fluffy ball shapes, beautiful muted red, pink, orange, lime, and yellow colors
- Queeny Lime Red and Lemon Peach are my favorites; the colors just go with everything!
- Lilliput series: easy to find in stores, tiny, ball-shaped blooms in a variety of colors, perfect size for accents, long wiry stems
- I collect seed from the softest peachy pinks
- Floret Originals: hard to acquire and pricey, but the pastel colors are absolutely gorgeous and unique for a zinnia
- Golden Hour and Alpenglow are my favorites
- Benary’s Giant series: huge, brightly colored zinnias, makes a great focal flower
To harvest zinnias, wiggle the stem below an open flower. If the stem is stiff, it is ready to pick. If the stem is floppy, it needs more time in the garden!
2. Dahlias
Warning: Dahlias may become an obsession! There are so many different forms and colors to choose from, and many people collect and breed dahlias both for fun and profit.
The best type to grow for vase life is the ball form. You can expect a vase life of 3-5 days for these. I also really like the decorative dahlias. Dinnerplates are spectacular en masse or as a single flower in a bud vase, but may be difficult to work into bouquets and arrangements.
You must purchase dahlias as tubers in the spring at big box stores or nurseries, or you can pre-order them online in the winter from reputable dealers.
If you buy dahlia seeds, they will not be true to the seed packet. Dahlias are octoploids and two parents can produce wildly different offspring. It’s part of the fun and frustration of growing dahlias from seed. You never know what you’re going to get.
These are the dahlias I’ve grown and loved:
- Thomas Edison (deep purple, dinnerplate, decorative)
- Shiloh Noelle (white with a lavender sheen)
- Ivanetti (magenta, ball)
- Sylvia (bright orange, ball)
- Cornel Bronze (muted orange, ball)
- Crazy Love (white with creamy yellow center and lavender edged petals, decorative)
- Genova (lavender purple, ball)
- Rosella (cool pink decorative)
I can hardly imagine what a cut-flower garden would be without dahlias. They are very easy to plant. You simply dig a hole and place the tuber in it. Then wait for it to grow.
Do not bother watering the tuber until it starts to sprout and grow roots. Dahlias are prone to tuber rot if overwatered, however, once they are growing full-swing, they like getting regular moisture.
3. Cosmos
Thin wispy stems with a large, blousy flower that adds so much movement in a bouquet and in the cut-flower garden. I just love the romantic look to cosmos.
When the self-sown flowers appear at the end of summer, it just takes my breath away.
These flowers need to be picked before they fully open, when color starts to appear on the bud.
I have a long list of other cosmos flowers that I want to try, but these are my favorites so far:
- Sensation Mix (classic cosmos in magenta, light pink, and white; these have large flowers with a single layer of petals surrounding a yellow center; the magenta and white are my favorite colors)
- Apricotta (peachy pink cosmos with a bit of ruffle to it and streaks of gold on the petals; truly gorgeous in the sun)
- Rubenza (large, muted red cosmos flowers)
- Candy Stripe (white flowers edged in magenta; the real fun, I think, are the ones that in the mix that are not true to the picture; some are pink with white edging, or pink with white streaks, etc.)
These flowers look beautiful en masse or as a wispy accent, floating above the more solid zinnias and dahlias in an arrangement.
4. Celosia
This is my first year growing celosia and I can’t imagine going without it now. I love the spiky form of the flowers and the velvety texture it adds to bouquets.
There are three different forms of celosia: wheat, cockscomb, and plume.
If I could only grow one, I think I would choose plume, but the other two are beautiful and useful also. So it really depends on what you like!
The two I am growing this year are:
- Flamingo (light pink, wheat)
- Spun Sugar (warm pink, plume, a Floret original and hard to find)
I really love the wispy threads of the Spun Sugar celosia, and the thickness of the flower head fills out bouquets very nicely. Spun Sugar is hard to find, but I can recommend Pampas Plume as an alternative with different colors.
Amaranth like this Hot Biscuits variety has a very similar look to plumed celosia and would be a good option as well, especially for the fall.
5. Sunflower
Sunflowers are just so happy. They have these big smiling faces that turn towards the sun.
They are so easy to grow (they actually self-seed in my garden).
Also, birds love to eat the seeds, and I enjoy watching them eat the seeds. Plus, sunflowers attract so many bees. A lot to love about sunflowers.
I’m not a huge fan of the traditional sunflower, so I’m glad that there are so many different options out there.
I typically pick up a new variety to try every year.
This year, my favorite sunflowers (all new to me) include:
- Teddy Bear (super fluffy, double flower heads in a golden yellow-orange hue; kind of like a giant dandelion)
- Procut White Nite (pale, creamy yellow, almost white petals with a dark brown center; the Procut series is pollen-free, so really great for cut-flowers)
- Procut Red (deep, rich red petals with a dark, almost black center)
6. Mint
OK, I know mint is an herb. But it does flower, and it has really nice smelling leaves. It’s also extremely productive, so you can pick as much of it as you want, and be assured that it will not die.
As a filler, it is very useful in cut-flower arrangements and garden-fresh bouquets. Most cut flowers don’t have a scent, so mint helps give it that scent appeal.
Also, I think most bouquets benefit from having some leaves and low-key filler flowers to help the focal flowers to shine.
When mint flowers, it has spikey white or pale purple flowers that contrast well with round-shaped flowers.
My favorite varieties of mint are:
- Apple Mint (large green leaves)
- Chocolate Mint (chocolate scent, dark burgundy stems and deep green leaves)
- Pineapple Mint (variegated green and creamy white leaves)
7. Sage
Another great herb for cut-flower gardens is sage. Sage can get quite bushy and tall, has beautiful blue-green leaves, lasts a long time in the vase, and smells great.
I really recommend growing at least one reliable foliage plant for flower arrangements and bouquets.
It is a great leafy filler. But did you know that sage also flowers? In the late spring/early summer, it has purple flowers and once the flowers fall off, it leaves behind chartreuse calyxes that add great texture in a bouquet.
Plus sage is perennial, so you can leave it in your cut-flower garden year after year.
I only grow regular old garden sage, but the purple ones and the variegated ones are so pretty, too.
8. Snapdragons
Snapdragons require a little more thought and planning, but again, those spiky blooms make it worth the extra attention.
The seeds are tiny, but once they get started, the seedlings are pretty strong.
Snapdragons like to grow in cold, cold weather, so early spring is a good time to sow these.
There are different groups (1-4) of snapdragons to classify when the flower will bloom. I just grow a mix to keep it simple for myself.
These will peter out in the heat of summer, but once it cools again in the fall, they will rebloom.
Make sure to get a tall variety, like this blend, to grow the best stems for flower arrangements and bouquets.
9. Basil
Back to herbs that double as cut flowers! Basil is a great filler flower/herb that smells wonderful and grows very prolifically.
The more you cut basil, the bushier it gets. It’s very easy to grow from seed and not too expensive to buy as a plant starts.
My favorite basils are:
- Lemon Basil (smells like lemon, lighter green colored leaves)
- Cinnamon Basil (smells like cinnamon, burgundy stems and flowers)
- Purple Ruffles (dark purple leaves)
- Cardinal Basil (grow for its showy purple flowers and fresh scent)
10. Rudbeckia
Black-eyed Susans, or rudbeckia, are a long lasting, productive cut flower. There are a few different colors, not just yellow, but I’ve really only grown one variety, and that’s Sahara.
I think Sahara Rudbeckia is a great mix for cut-flower gardens because you get a variety of bloom shapes from single to double, and the colors range from muted peach, to gold, bronze, deep red, and bicolors.
It also pairs well with sunflowers and Queeny Lime Red zinnias, which is one of my favorite zinnias.
Some other rudbeckia varieties to try include:
- Cherokee Sunset (warm, rich golds, bronzes, and reds that are perfect for fall and have double or semi-double blooms like Sahara)
- Prairie Sun (large yellow flowers with a bright green eye; very floriferous)
Rudbeckia can self-sow and perennialize in a garden. This may or may not be a good thing to you, but I like it because I don’t have to plant it year after year!
Honorable Mentions
I’m really only just now diving into the world of cut flowers, but even still, it was difficult to narrow down my list to 10 flowers and fillers.
If I could add more (that I’ve personally grown, I’m sure there are other easy to grow flowers out there!), I would add:
- Dill (Bouquet Dill has scented yellow flowers that bring an extra layer of sparkle in a bouquet; the seedheads are also great)
- Feverfew (tiny daisy-like sprays, the downside is it blooms in slow flushes, and really only comes in yellow and white)
- Yarrow (I don’t have a lot of experience with yarrow besides a pearl yarrow that looks like baby’s breath, but I am growing Summer Berries Mix, and love the colors so far. It’s drought-tolerant, perennial, and dries beautifully)
- Hydrangea (yes, it’s a shrub and not really a “cut-and-come-again” flower, but it’s one of my favorite shrubs, and I’ve discovered that the smaller heads make great filler in bouquets, plus the flowers last forever; I highly recommend Little Lime Hydrangea and Little Lime Punch Hydrangea)
- Ornamental grass (perennial or annual, grass seedheads are beautiful in late summer and autumn bouquets)
- Tall Sedum (like Autumn Delight, for instance, sedums are drought-tolerant perennials that bloom in early fall and last a long time in bouquets)
- Daffodils (sure, they only bloom in the spring, but they are very easy to grow; try a pink mix if you’re looking for something different, and read my post on spring bulbs if you’re curious about daffodils)
I hope this post gives you some clarity as you choose flowers for your cut-flower garden. There are a lot of beautiful cut flowers out there, and flower breeders are doing great work in creating new varieties of easy to grow cut-flowers for home gardeners.
Also keep in mind, that if you have a vegetable garden, you can use bits from those plants in your bouquets as well. I mentioned a bunch of different herbs above, but you could also snip off tomato and pepper stems to include in bouquets.
Maybe try other herbs I didn’t mention, like rosemary, oregano, and lavender.
Growing your own cut-flower bouquets is a rewarding hobby and just adds so much beauty outdoors and indoors.
If you have not grown cut-flowers before and want to know how to start, I wrote this post on starting a cut-flower garden, too.
Do you have any cut-flower favorites or recommendations? Comment below so we can all learn about them, too.