Summertime means bouquets of flowers from the garden. Plant a garden solely intended for flowers to enjoy indoors throughout the rooms in your home. If you are currently dependent on flowering shrubs like roses, peonies and hydrangeas alone for arrangements, consider planting a cutting garden. The following suggestions are for creating a cutting garden:
Location - Choose a sunny location. Around the vegetable garden is a good location, or consider a secluded place behind a border where cuttings will not be so evident.
Planning - Choose plants with your favorite-colored blooms; soft shades in pink, blue, lavender or yellow, or vibrant shades of fiery reds, deep purple, dark blue or golden yellow. It all depends on how you want to harmonize with the interior of your home and the colors you love to live with.
Planting - Prepare the soil by adding a compost mixture to the soil and spading it into the ground. Lay a mulch to control weeds. Check the nursery or garden center where you purchase plants as to the soil requirements for the plants. Know which plants need frequent watering and which are drought-tolerant.
Caring for Cut Flowers - The best time is to cut flowers early in the morning or in the late evening. When you go to harvest from your cutting garden, bring a bucket of cool water and a sharp (and clean) pair of scissors intended for cutting flowers. Snip stems at an angle, and place flowers in your bucket of water. Bring indoors and set in a cool spot until the temperature matches the room, and then arrange the flowers. For flowers for immediate use, cut the stems and carry flowers with the heads down to keep stems straight and flower heads from breaking.
Favorite Perennial Flowers for Cutting - Some of my favorite perennial flowers for bouquets are astilbe, bee balm, columbine, coneflower, coreopsis, delphinium, gaillardia, lavender, peony, roses and shasta daisy.
Favorite Annuals for Cutting - Cornflower, cosmos, dahlia, geranium, larkspur, marigold, snapdragon and sweet pea. (Editor's note: Some of these are actually perennials, but are often grown as annuals in many parts of the country.)
Favorite Biennials for Cutting - These are planted one year and bloom the following year. Canterbury bells, English daisy, forget-me-not and Sweet William.
Your cutting garden will show the pleasures of your handiwork, whether it be an elaborate arrangement or simply placing a single flower in a bud vase.
