Perennial cut flowers bridge the gaps between seasons, keeping your garden and vases full when annuals aren’t blooming.
If you’re like me, you’ve fallen madly in love with cutting vase after vase of flowers straight from your garden.
A good cut flower garden to me is one that has a mix of blooms from spring to fall (and through winter for a lucky few in those warm zones).
How do you keep your garden mixed and interesting? By adding perennials!
Perennials are the perfect accompaniment to an annual cutting garden like my Magic 7 Cut Flower Garden.
This garden plan is my done-for-you solution to beginners wondering what to plant, how to plant, and when and where to plant to grow a balanced bouquet.
Take a look at The Magic 7 Cut Flower Garden Plan if you’re interested.
What Are Perennials?
Perennials are plants that show up year after year without needing to be replanted. For this post, I’m dividing my favorite perennial cut flowers into two categories: woody shrubs and herbaceous perennials.
Woody shrubs form hard, branching stems and will regrow from these above-ground stems in the spring.
Herbaceous perennials die back to the ground every year and resurrect themselves from the roots up each spring.
Why Grow Perennials
Growing perennials makes any garden more interesting and low-mainentenance. Don’t rely on annuals alone to fill your vases!
I enjoy growing perennial flowers because:
- They come back every year. Once established, perennials grow back on their own without needing to be reseeded or replanted every spring. That’s low-maintenance!
- They fill in the gaps in the season. As spring transitions to summer, there’s often a gap between spring bulbs and summer flowers. Perennials help fill in those gaps with showstopping color and stunning blooms while we wait for our dahlias and zinnias to take off.
- They save time and money. Fewer plants to propagate, seed, or buy each season equals more blooms for less effort and expense.
- They get better with age. First they sleep, then they creep, then they leap. This old adage describes how perennials often grow. Slowly at first, but bursting with abundance as they mature. A bit of patience now will reward you with armloads of flowers later.
- They pair well with others. Perennials grow happily with annuals, bulbs, dahlias, and vines, adding fluff, structure, and greenery to your overall garden. Because they don’t need to be replanted or dug up, the soil beneath them remains undisturbed and the perennial roots keep the soil from becoming compacted.
- They provide a solution for problem areas. Got a spot that’s too far for the hose to reach? Or a spot that gets too much shade? Perennials can solve whatever problem you’ve got in your yard.
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite shrubs and herbaceous perennials for the cut flower garden.
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5 Favorite Perennial Shrubs for the Cut Flower Garden
Shrubs form the backbone of ornamental gardens, and they are very useful for flower arranging, too.
If you have space in your ornamental gardens, I’d pop one or two of these in there so you have more shrubs to snip from. You can remove a few branches here and there as the shrubs get bigger without detracting from their overall look.
1. Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are my favorite perennial shrub. I grow a number of different types of hydrangeas from macrophylla to arborescens to paniculata. It’s hard to choose a favorite! Hydrangea flowers last a long time in the vase, dry beautifully, and provide interest in the landscape from summer through winter.
I use them in winter planters like this one, too. Find all my favorite hydrangeas and learn how to prune them in this post.
2. Roses
Yes, roses are a bit high maintenance, but their scent is unmatched and they are undeniably beautiful. Plus, you can eat rose petals and use rose hips for tea. The lowest maintenance roses I’ve found are landscape/hybrid roses. I also avoid roses that have been grafted and tend to select ones growing on their own roots. There are plenty of beautiful roses out there to choose from.
3. Lilac
One of my favorite shrubs for spring. Lilac blossoms smell amazing and are edible too. Lilacs grow quickly and provide plenty of foliage that I find myself needing most from spring to early summer.
4. Ninebark
Beautiful, dark foliage that adds a moody look to bouquets and makes light-colored flowers pop. It has small flowers in the spring, too, but I think its leaf color is what really makes this shrub stand out in the landscape and in the vase.
5. Blackberries
Blackberry bushes are an underrated foliage and textural element in cut flower gardens. It grows quickly, provides berries in the summer that you can either eat or tuck into arrangements, and in the fall, my blackberry shrubs deepen in color and look gorgeous.
16 Herbaceous Perennial Flowers for Cut Flower Use
These flowers die back in winter and return with a vengeance in spring. When selecting perennials for cut flower use, check the plant tag to make sure the plant grows over 24 inches tall. You’ll want to have max stem length for the vase and bouquets.
1. Daisies
Daisies are cheerful, carefree additions to the perennial cut flower garden. They come in white and yellow, and there are specialty varieties with fluffy or shaggy heads if you want something different from the classic.
2. Stonecrop Sedum
Sedums are so underrated. This plant is my favorite late season perennial because it looks great all year round. It’s early to regrow in the spring, has a mounded growth habit, and produces flowers that attract pollinators for miles around in late summer. Sedum is also drought tolerant and super easy to propagate. I divide mine just about every year, and I’ve nearly filled up my whole backyard with them!
3. Yarrow
Yarrow is super easy to grow from seed, comes in a variety of colors, and dries beautifully. It’s a fantastic filler flower and looks great en masse in the landscape and in the vase.
4. Coneflowers (Echinacea)
Coneflowers or echinacea are another popular perennial that cut flower gardeners need to grow. There are so many varieties and colors to choose from. I really like the classic look of Magnus. And if the petals get withered and droopy, you can pull them off and still use the attractive cones for texture in bouquets.
5. Sea Holly (Eryngium)
Sea holly is drought tolerant and tough as nails. I resisted adding this to my garden for years despite its low-maintenance nature because of its resemblance to thistles (which I loathe with deepest loathing). However, I’m happy to report that sea holly is well-behaved, though a bit spiky, and I am really enjoying having it in my bouquets.
6. Catmint (Nepeta)
Great scent, bee-magnet, very fast-growing, easy to propagate, and looks great in the garden. Not the showiest blooms, but it’s great for filling in empty spaces and adding a little texture and scent to bouquets.
7. Peony
Showstopping peony blooms are a must-have for cut flower use. Although they only bloom once a year, they come at a much needed time when spring bulbs are on their way out but the annual summer garden staples aren’t blooming yet. You can also store budded peonies in the fridge and bring them out months later.
8. Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums are a beautiful perennial flower that come in wide variety of colors and bloom in late summer to early fall. It can be hard to wait for them to bloom, but they really are necessary for extending the seasonality of the cut flower garden.
9. Scabiosa (perennial types)
Scabiosa readily grows from seed both as annual and perennial varieties. The thin wiry stems are easy to weave into bouquets and the blooms and seed heads are great to use for arranging. Fama White and Fama Deep Blue are two perennial varieties to add to your cut flower garden.
10. Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan)
Rudbeckia is a cheerful daisy-like flower that comes in warm yellows, orange, burnt sienna, and reds. It’s not a long-lived perennial, but reseeds easily and is easy to propagate and sow from seed. I’ve been growing Sahara (shown above) for a few years now and love it. Rudbeckia Triloba is another popular cut flower variety.
11. Veronica (Speedwell)
Veronica or speedwell is a beautiful addition to a cut flower garden if you can get your hands on a tall variety like most veronica longifolia. Some variety names to look out for include Skyler series, Blue Skywalker, Da Vinci Delight, Purple Leia, First Love, Lavender Lightsaber, and Perfectly Picasso. (A lot of Star Wars names!) Most veronica stay short Great for adding a spike element to bouquets.
12. Feverfew
Feverfew is easy to grow from seed and will reseed itself in the garden if not cut back. My favorite are the open-centered kind that look like tiny daisies called Magic Single.
13. Lilies
If you love lilies, you’ll be happy to know they’re easy to plant from bulbs in the spring. Lilies have large architectural blooms that are eye-catching both in the garden and vase. If you’re not a fan of the strong scent, pick up Asiatic, LA hybrids, or roselilies instead. These have little to no scent.
14. Bearded Iris
If you have an area in your cut flower garden that doesn’t drain as quickly as you’d like, iris may be the solution. Iris doesn’t mind having wet feet from time to time and produces gorgeous blooms in late spring to early summer.
15. Astilbe
For cut flower gardeners struggling with shade, astilbe is just the thing to fill it with. Fluffy, romantic astilbe flowers appear in late spring to early summer in a variety of pinks, reds, and cream. These are my favorite plant to recommend to shade gardeners. They’re easy to care for, and you can use the foliage in bouquets as well.
16. Globe Thistle (Echinops)
I resisted adding this to my garden for years despite its low-maintenance nature because it’s called a “thistle” (which I loathe with deepest loathing). However, I’m happy to report that globe thistle is well-behaved, though a bit spiky, and I am looking forward to watching it thrive in the coming years.
Planting Perennials in the Cut Flower Garden
Perennials are a low-maintenance addition to any cut flower garden.
All they need is a little pruning or deadheading and division if they start to get too crowded.
For maintaining your cut flower gardens (all perennials, woodies, and annuals), take a look at my 7 essential tools for flower gardeners.
Planting a well-rounded flower garden with spring bulbs, flowering trees and shrubs, annual cut flowers, and flowering perennials is the key to having blooms to arrange for the longest possible time.
These 21 perennial cut flowers shine in those in-between weeks when annuals are slow or spent, giving you reliable stems during those tricky shoulder seasons.
Let me know in the comments which perennials are your favorites!
Extend your cut flower season with spring bulbs, too. See all my tips for planting spring bulbs and favorite spring bulb varieties here.