A bouquet of fresh summer flowers is an absolute delight for just about any gardener, but to be able to harvest unique combinations of beautiful blooms from your own garden is just that much more satisfying. With that said, unless you have a very expansive garden, it could also feel a little counter-productive to grow such beautiful blooms, only to cut them when they are at their most spectacular.
But, if you are a big fan of bringing the delight of your garden indoors, there is a simple solution – planting perennials specifically for the purpose of cutting! It’s almost like a floral version of a veggie garden.
Plant These Perennials Now for the Perfect Cutting Garden
By having a dedicated cutting garden of beautiful perennials, you can enjoy beautiful blooms in vases throughout your home all summer long without feeling like you are taking away from the aesthetic of your yard. Check out this A to Z list of some of the best perennials to plant for the purpose of cutting:
Agapanthus: Hailing from the Netherlands, this low-maintenance, long-stemmed perennial is a perfect addition to any cutting garden. These beautiful plants often grow as container plants, producing colorful clusters of trumpet-shaped flowers in cool blue and white tones, typically blooming from June to August.
Amarine: A hybrid between an Amaryllis, and a Nerine, Amarine’s were bred for a cut flower market. Their blooms range from a deep magenta to pale pink, and their long stems and long bloom-time make them one of the best perennials for cutting.
Bessera – elegans: These bell-shaped, pendant-like flowers are just lovely. Native to Mexico, they bring a unique, coral-red color to your cutting garden, blooming from mid-summer into early fall.
Bletilla: These incredibly beautiful Japanese Orchids are long-lasting in bloom, making them a wonderful addition to a summer bouquet. When it comes to harvesting them, the best way to do so is by pulling them rather than cutting them. If you pull them away from the rhizome, you are able to get a bit of a longer stem.
Caladium: You might be surprised to hear that we put Caladiums to good use in floral arrangements! Varying from reddish-bronze to pale pink, green, and with intricate veining, their foliage brings a truly decorative, colorful aspect to any bouquet, particularly when used as fillers around the edge of an arrangement.
Convallaria: More commonly known as Lily of The Valley, Convallaria is well known for its wonderful fragrance. Just remember when you plant this beautiful perennial in your cutting garden that they are relatively small, so they might get a little lost in some of your larger bouquets. But, they make for a lovely addition to those dainty little arrangements that fit so nicely on side tables or modest shelving.
Dahlias: I mean, we really can’t say enough about dahlias. They are just superb in our eyes. Their blooms come in just about every color of the rainbow, and if you start them early enough, you can have late-spring and early-summer blooms and then a second bloom later in the season. They are what we call “cut and come again” flowers. They vary slightly in size, with their stems ranging from six inches to a foot or two. For the best deep arrangements, you can plant the larger varieties of these perennials in your cutting garden, but the shorter ones have their place as well. Brent particularly likes to grab a block of Oasis (floral foam) and just fill it with Dahlias!
Eucomis: Also known as the Pineapple Lily, this South African native has a conical flower head filled with fragrant florets and sports a peacock tuft of green leaves, resembling a pineapple. It is a superb, long-lasting flower that we carry in shades of burgundy, creamy yellow, soft pink, and more. You can pull these fragrant flowers quite easily for a stunning addition to your summer bouquet.
Gladiolus: These beauties need no introduction. Gladiolus is one of the biggest cut flowers in the marketplace. They are relatively cheap and easy to grow, and like Dahlias, they come in just about every color in the rainbow. Where most flowers have more of a mounding quality to them, Gladiolus brings a lovely linear shape to both the garden and bouquets.
Liatris: These beautiful bulbs are native here in the United States, but they are also very highly produced in the Netherlands, which makes them quite affordable. They are unique in that they start flowering at the top of the stem and bloom down, which is highly unusual. Most plants start at the bottom and bloom up the stalk. Their bottlebrush-like flowers are super, long-lasting cuts, and while they’re growing in your garden, they will also attract lots of pollinators!
Lilies: Another one that certainly needs no introduction! Lilies are one of the most popular cut flowers in the world. Many have a wonderful fragrance about them (the Asiatics being an exception), and they come in an absolute multitude of colors. One thing to remember is that their stamens can stain fabric quite easily. So, once you cut them and bring them indoors to add to your bouquet, it is ideal to remove them. Ideally, you want to wait to cut your Llilies until the buds are just beginning to show color, as they will then open indoors and give you a much longer bloom time.
Nerine: Easily one of our favorites, Nerines produce umbels of exotic, spicy scented, pink flowers with narrow, wavy, recurved petals which bloom well into the late fall. And, aside from having extremely long-lasting, truly striking blooms, the nickname for Nerines also comes with an interesting story. Otherwise known as the ‘Guernsey Lily,’ it is said that they were taken from South Africa to England and shipwrecked on the Isle of Guernsey. The bulbs then floated ashore, and they’ve naturalized on the Isle of Guernsey—hence the nickname Guernsey Lily!
By having a dedicated cutting garden of beautiful perennials, you can enjoy beautiful blooms in vases throughout your home all summer long.
Tuberose: We have yet to meet a single soul that didn’t like the sweet-smelling fragrance of the Tuberose. These tubular, waxy blooms also look just as amazing as they smell! If you plant these perennial bulbs in your cutting garden now, you will have blooms for bouquets for all of your friends come late summer! However, when they overwinter, they also often bloom in early summer and seem to just last forever.
Zantedeschia: Otherwise known as Calla Lilies, these timeless flowers grown from rhizomes bring a certain eloquence and elegance to perennial gardens, cutting gardens, and containers. Their smooth, sword-like foliage and trumpet-like blooms come in alluring colors like rich purple, dusky rose, rich golden yellow, and more.
Ready to get started with your very own cutting garden? Remember that, for the most part, flowers tend to prefer access to a sufficient amount of sunshine throughout the day. So pick a nice sunny spot in your backyard, get planting, and prepare to have the most beautiful, unique-to-you bouquets all summer long!
