How to Start the Cut-Flower Garden of Your Dreams

Today is the day to begin planning your first cut-flower garden.

Cut flowers are easy to grow and so rewarding. If you’ve struggled with vegetables, you may find cut flowers grow more readily for you.

They can often handle poorer soil and some will grow from seed to bloom in less than two months.

Growing cut-and-come-again flowers will provide you with endless bouquets from summer to fall.

Find more on flower gardening in my cut flower gardening guide here.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps to plan your cut-flower garden.

1. Choose Your Space
2. Decide What to Grow
3. Plan It Out
4. Buy Seeds and Everything Else
5. Prep and Plant Your Cut-Flower Garden

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Step 1: Choose Your Space

Location is everything!

Flowers grow best in full sun–that’s 6-8 hours of sunlight per day. The cooler your climate, the more sun you will want on your plants. Conversely, if you live in a hot climate, you may consider providing shade for your plants from the hot afternoon sun.

Either way, find a sunny area in your yard that is just right for your garden.

This post on choosing the right location for your garden can help you decide where to grow if you want to know more.

Next, decide how big your flower garden will be. A 4×4 foot bed will yield plenty of flowers for your home, but if you want to have flowers to share, or just more variety, you may want a larger space.

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You should also think about whether you want to grow in a raised bed or in the ground.

I grow flowers in both, and I really think both are great options. It all depends on the look you’re going for and what your budget is, as building beds, whether wood, metal, or stone, and filling them all with soil can be costly.

If you need help weighing the pros and cons of growing in raised beds, I wrote a guide to help you decide between raised beds and in-ground gardens.

For me, flowers grow well in both types of spaces and our soil is decent enough that most plants thrive with minimal input and care.

However, your soil may not be ideal, in which case you’d want to amend it or use raised beds.

Or you may not have space to grow in the ground. Containers or elevated planters could be the best solution for you in that case.

Find tips for growing in containers in my post on container potager gardens.

Once you know where you want to grow, it’s time to decide exactly what to grow.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Step 2: Decide What to Grow

Deciding what to grow is an exciting step. This is where you get to imagine the bouquets you want to make and the colors you want to see blooming in your garden.

Cut-and-Come Again Flowers

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I can’t recommend cut-and-come again flowers more highly!

Cut-and-come-again flowers are exactly that: you cut them once and then come again and cut more. These are the best types of flowers to grow in a small space.

Some of my favorite cut-and-come-again flowers include:

• dahlias
• zinnias
• cosmos
• celosia
• marigold
• gomphrena
• snapdragons

Sunflowers are also great cut flowers, especially if you get seeds for pollen-free and branching sunflowers. Find out more about growing the right sunflower varieties in this post.

Color Palette for Cut Flowers

Think about your color palette as well. When I was planning my cut flower garden this year, I pinned several bouquets I loved and chose colors from those bouquets to use in my garden. You can get bouquet inspiration from my Pinterest Boards: Flower Arrangements and Garden Color Schemes.

I also wrote a post breaking down the ingredients in my peachy-pink bouquet here.

Most flowers come in a wide range of colors, so even if you only decide to grow one type of flower, you can have a variety of colors to be able to change up your bouquets.

Variety Makes a Bouquet Interesting

Include a variety of flower sizes and shapes. Spiky flowers, daisy-like flowers, ruffly flowers, tiny flowers, disc flowers…

These all can make your bouquet more interesting and feel more like a florist arrangement.

Don’t forget about leafy stems. Growing annual foliage like dusty miller or cutting perennial shrub foliage help round out a bouquet.

Herbs can be used in bouquets for foliage and scent. You’ll also be able to use the herbs in the kitchen! Take a look at my list of favorite herbs for cut flower use.

Of course, it can also be a bit overwhelming considering all the options.

If you’d rather just follow a complete, done-for-you system for growing cut flowers, take a look at The Magic 7 Cut Flower Garden Plan.

I’ve chosen 7 easy-to-grow flowers that look great together in bouquets. All you have to do is choose the color palette and plant the seeds.

Find the complete plan in my shop.

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Step 3: Plan It Out

Let’s do a quick recap to make sure we’re on track for starting your cut-flower garden. You’ve chosen a spot to site your garden and decided whether you’ll grow in the ground, in raised beds, or in containers. You created your dream list of blooms and foliage.

Now you are ready to create a planting layout.

Make a Planting Layout

Your planting layout will be a simple sketch showing where you’ll put everything in your garden.

I like to do this before buying seeds and plants so that I know I have space for the things I want to grow.

Your planting layout does not have to be fancy! It’s just meant to ground you in reality before you start looking at seeds and plants.

I can get a little carried away when I’m shopping. I convince myself that I MUST grow 20 different things but come planting time, I find out that I only have room for 8!

Having a rough idea of how much space you have to dedicate to the plants you want to grow can help you stay focused when it’s time to buy plants and seeds for your garden.

If you are looking for a completely done-for-you cut flower garden layout and planting plan, take a peek at the Magic 7 Cut Flower Garden Plan that I created.

It’s designed for a 4’x8′ garden space and includes a balanced mix of key types of flowers and foliage. Plus, you’ll find specific flower variety names for 5 different color schemes so you’ll know exactly what seeds to buy.

Find the Magic 7 Cut Flower Garden Plan here.

Once you’ve got your plan figured out, you’ll figure out when to plant everything.

Schedule a Planting Date

Knowing when to plant is tricky. The weather varies from region to region and what works for me, may not work for you.

The best way to figure out when to plant is to find your last frost date. Your last frost date is a good estimate of when it will be safe to plant your summer cutting garden.

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Warm-season flowers should be sown after your last frost date once air temperatures are consistently 50°F (10°C) or higher.

The back of your seed packets will tell you when to plant the seeds in the ground.

Some seeds will be safe to plant right at your last frost date or even before. Just check your seed packet to be sure.

Of course, you’ll also be checking the weather as you get closer to your last frost date to make sure there aren’t any more freezes or cold snaps in the forecast.

For me, my last frost date is April 25. I start checking my 10-day forecast near that date and (try my best to!) wait until nighttime temps are high 40’s/low 50’s. Usually that’s a week into May.

Choose a date to begin planting seeds and mark it on your calendar! Make sure to have all the seeds, tubers, and garden tools you need before that date.

Finally, I should mention that if you plan on starting from seed indoors (meaning you will not be direct sowing outdoors) you will have to do that about a month before your planting date.

Do a little research to know exactly when. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s move on to Step 4!

Step 4: Buy Seeds and Everything Else

Now that you’ve got a plan for what to grow and when to grow it, you can start looking for seeds, tubers, or started plants.

Growing from seed gives you the most versatility and the healthiest plants. It’s also the cheapest way to get lots of plants for your garden.

All the plants I listed in Step 2 can be grown from seed except for dahlias, which are best grown from tubers.

I would also recommend buying herbs as started plants except for dill, which grows best from seed.

When buying seeds or started plants, make sure that the plant varieties you chose will grow tall when mature, ideally 36″ or taller.

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Direct sowing, which simply means planting seeds in the ground where they’ll be growing, is the best way to grow a lot of common cut-and-come-again flowers. Each plant and variety has its quirks, so you’ll have to research that a bit if you’re not sure.

Seed starting indoors is a way to get plants to mature sooner and start blooming sooner. Get started with my seed starting guide here.

Where to Find Good Seeds

Here are a few places I would recommend purchasing flower seeds from online. You can also check your local garden center for seeds.

• High Mowing Organic Seeds
• Botanical Interests
• The Gardener’s Workshop
• Park Seed

Other Tools for Cut-Flower Gardening

Some other basic tools are really useful to have if you’re just getting started with gardening.

These include:

• hose (or at least a watering can and close access to water)
• small spade or shovel
• strong stakes and twine (or some kind of plant support like tomato cages)
• snips or pruners

More on my other essential cut flower gardening tools in this post.

Step 5: Prep and Plant Your Cut-Flower Garden

Once the soil has warmed enough to work (basically not soggy or frozen), you can begin preparing your garden bed.

If you’re planning a brand-new garden, try sheet mulching to create your garden quickly and easily!

For my in-ground cut-flower garden, I like to put a simple border around the bed to remind others (and myself) not to step inside and crush the baby seedlings!

I typically use bricks to mark the beds off and sometimes, I’ll put stakes and twine around them too to keep kids from running through.

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Prep the Soil

First, prepare the soil in your garden beds by raking it smooth. Sprinkle an inch or two of good compost on top and rake it in.

If you plan to add slow-release organic fertilizer, you can do so now as well.

Don’t over do it on the fertilizer, though, because not all the flowers will want rich soil!

Plant Your Garden

Once you’ve bought your seeds and/or plants, organize them by their mature height.

Place the tallest plants at the north end of your garden bed and the shortest plants at the south end. If you are planting against a wall or tall fence, put your tallest plants close to the fence and shortest plants farther away at the front of the bed.

Then, when you’re ready, plant your seeds according to packet instructions. Plant any seedlings you have ready.

Water everything in thoroughly.

If you have heavy pest pressure, cover your seeds and seedlings with a lightweight frost fabric or fine mesh to keep bugs and bunnies out.

Keep seeds well watered until they sprout.

Most flowers (especially dahlias, zinnias, and snapdragons) will also benefit from being staked or supported in some way. If you have a small bed, you can corral the plants by placing stakes on the outside of your bed and tying twine around the stakes to hold the flowers upright and in.

Other options include tomato cages or good ol’ stake and twine.

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Cut Flowers and Arrange Bouquets

Now you get to the part you’ve been waiting for so long: the harvest! Once you start seeing blooms, begin cutting the flowers.

This was hard for me to do at first because not cutting flowers has been ingrained into me since I was a child.

“Don’t touch the flowers!”

But the whole point of growing a cut-flower garden is to cut the flowers and enjoy them for however long they last in the vase.

Here are a few of my favorite Mason jar bouquet formulas to use for arranging flowers.

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In fact, now I cut whatever blooms I want and bring them in because I enjoy seeing them up close more so than just out in the landscape.

When they are indoors, I can really study every detail of each bloom and admire their beauty.

Flower arranging is definitely a skill, and if you want to see how bad some of my first arrangements were, read this post!

One great thing about growing cut-and-come again flowers is that the more you pick, the more flowers will grow.

A flower that goes to seed signals the plant that it has fulfilled its duty in reproducing and the plant will begin to shut down. It will stop producing flowers and die.

Cutting your flowers as often as possible will tell the plant to keep going and keep growing.

Then you will have even more flowers. Yay!

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Tips for an Amazing Cut-Flower Garden

These are the keys to getting an amazing cut-flower garden in your first year.

• Water longer, less often–meaning keep the water on for a longer period of time to make sure the ground is saturated up to an inch deep, but water less frequently, like just every 3 days. This will encourage your plants to grow roots more deeply.
• Automate your watering. I used a sprinkler set to a timer that went off early in the morning every 3 days for about 45 minutes. The more things you can automate and not worry about, the more enjoyable your gardening experience will be.
• Cut long stems on cut-and-come-again flowers. Zinnias, dahlias, most celosia, cosmos, and herbs like basil benefit from being cut deeply. They branch off wherever you make a cut, so cutting stems lower on the plant will encourage low branching, which makes for a sturdier plant.
• Boost plants once a month with a liquid fertilizer for blooms. Typically these fertilizers have a higher middle number, or higher phosphorus, and low nitrogen. If you don’t want to use liquid, sprinkle a slow-release, granular fertilizer when you first plant flowers, and halfway into your growing season.

See my favorite watering supplies, gardening tools, and fertilizers in my resources page.

Take Time to Enjoy Your Garden

Last, but not least, enjoy your garden. Sit and admire it. Take photos and videos.

Notice the pollinators and wildlife enjoying your garden along with you.

Make yourself slow down, stop working, and smell the flowers.

This little habit will recharge you, relax you, and give you the energy to care for your plants when it is hot, buggy, and weedy. After all, the whole point of growing a garden is to admire it!