Want a new vase of zinnias, dahlias and roses on your bedside table every week? Growing a cut flower garden in your backyard is a fantastic way to create a beautiful outlook and give you fresh flowers for your home.
If you’re new to growing flowers or the difference between annual and perennial confuses you, this guide is for you. The founders of Gather Flower Farm, Eliza Henry-Jones and Melanie Kercheval, have given us great advice to follow when harvesting cut flowers and arranging your bouquet.
Here’s how to create your own cut flower garden for blooming beauties all year round.
What is a cut flower garden?
A cut flower garden is a garden that grows flowers and other plants that will specifically be used for displays, bouquets and vases.
They usually grow pretty flowers such as roses, dahlias and tulips, and will also include textural blooms like cornflowers or Queen Anne’s lace.
What are the best flowers to use?
The best flowers to use in a cut flower garden depend on which kinds you like most!
Eliza Henry-Jones says that the most popular cut flowers change according to season: “Last summer, we had a lot of people after peachy, orange and blue blooms. Dahlias are very popular, so are our roses. I’d love to see zinnias get a bit more appreciation – they’re easy to grow, come in an amazing range of colours, and hold really well in a vase.”
Eliza loves the fragrance of the heritage and David Austin roses, while Melanie loves the striking nature of dahlias and hydrangeas.
Here is a list of the top flowers to use for cut gardens:
Perennial flowers:
These are flowers that live for more than 2 years and are often quite slow-growing. They can be a bit trickier to grow from seed, but they make for beautiful cut flowers!
- Dahlias
- Roses
- Protea
- Peony
- Lavender
- Daffodil
- Baby’s breath (Gypsophila)
- Tulips
- Hydrangeas
- Salvias
- Echinacea
Annual flowers:
Annual flowers will live for 1 year (1 season of flowering). Typically they are sown from seed and will bloom in the warmer months of the year.
- Zinnia
- Cosmos
- Statice
- Cornflower
- Queen Anne’s lace
- Scabiosa
- Gerber daisy
- Poppy
- Marigold
Plants we grow outside of our busy summer and early autumn blooming period include ranunculus, daffodils and tulips as well as lilacs, protea, blushing bride and hellebore.
Other blooming flowers
Harvesting from a cut flower garden
Harvesting your flowers from the garden can take a little bit of getting used to. Because each flower type’s growing and blooming cycle is different, so too will be the right time to pick them.
Eliza explains that learning the different signs of each flower is vital, as it will help you decipher when to pick them. For dahlias, she says it’s best to pick them once they’ve already unfurled, while roses and peonies need to be done earlier, at the “bud-about-to-unfurl stage”.
For zinnias, Gather Flower Farm checks by “doing the ‘wobble’ test – wobbling the stem to see if they’re floppy (and need more time) or stiff and ready to cut.”
Arranging your flower bouquet
The experts from Gather Flower Farm explain the importance of variety in your vase. You’ll want to include different textures, shapes and sizes to achieve the ideal bouquet.
Their advice is to use odd numbers, “Stems tend to be added in uneven numbers to a bouquet or vase (ie, one, three, five). For instance, we might begin with some seeded gum or wattle, add three or so dahlias or roses as our statement blooms, then add secondary blooms such as zinnia or cosmos, before adding some delicate, textural blooms such as cornflower, Queen Anne’s lace or gypsophila (baby’s breath).”
“To prolong the vase life of your blooms, pick them when it’s cool (early morning or late evening) and let them rest in a cool, dark place in fresh, clean water. It’s important to keep vase water clean – stripping stems of leaves that will be below the water level helps. Direct sunshine, heat and dirty water drastically shorten the life of cut flowers, so keep things shaded, cool and clean.”
How to prolong vase life
Take a class from the experts
If creating a cut-flower garden seems too overwhelming, why not head straight to the source and visit Gather Flower Farm? Located in the luscious Yarra Valley, you can visit the farm to take a peek at the beautiful rows of dahlias and roses.
You can also enrol in a floral arranging workshop to learn how to make the most of your pretty little florals. Visit the Gather Flower Farm website to learn more about the workshops they have on offer.
