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I seem to be taking flowers to lots of people recently. I’ve had a rash of friends and relatives in the hospital, and, unless the person lives far away, I usually do an arrangement from the garden. It seems more personal and I can do a really nice arrangement for little cost. If I had to buy even modest arrangements to cheer all my sickly chums and kinfolk, I’d be broke.
Whether you want flowers for friends, for your dining table or for your place of worship, think about growing your own. Some flowers will come from perennials and some from woody plants, but save some space for a cutting garden of annuals. Most have the same needs: rich soil, regular watering and full sun.
Another requirement of a cutting garden is protection from high winds. If a plant is blown over, it usually keeps growing, but there will be a bend in the stem that makes arranging difficult. Staking will be necessary for some flowers, but a windbreak will help you limit that time-consuming task as much as possible.
My ideal cut flower would be easy to grow; have long, strong stems; have lots of flowers over a long season; be fragrant and last in a vase for at least a week. That’s a tall order, but many flowers meet quite a few of the criteria. Here is a list of the 10 plants I rely on most.
Dahlias - From mid-summer to frost, there is probably no more productive plant for cut flowers than dahlias. By this time of the year, mine usually have powdery mildew on the foliage, but I simply strip the leaves off and use other greens.
Winter daphne (variegated) Daphne odora ‘Marginata’ is a shade-loving shrub I use often for foliage. Its glossy green leaves with a pale yellow edge look great and hold up well. From January through at least March the little clusters of super-fragrant, pink flowers make it the basis for winter bouquets. Add winter-flowering branches, early bulbs or a few store-bought flowers and you can do a home-grown arrangement most of the “off-season.”
Feverfew These seed themselves year after year around my garden. They are easy to weed out, but, if they aren’t in the way, I leave them for a long-lasting filler flower.
Godetia Few people grow this plant and the reason is a mystery to me. It is easy from seed and may self-sow. It has stalks of satiny flowers in shades of pink and purple that have a great vase-life.
Larkspur Another flower that conveniently self-sows, this flower is terrific to add brilliant blue (or white, pink or lavender) to your arrangements. Sometimes I even dry stems for winter use.
Peonies They definitely rates low on the long-season scale, but do well on most of the others. Pick them just as the buds are opening to avoid bringing in ants. Prepare the soil well before you plant, because they don’t like being moved. Choose a fragrant cultivar and you have a nearly perfect cut-flower plant.
Roses There is nothing low-maintenance about most rose bushes, particularly since I tend to chose cultivars for fragrance, not disease resistance. Roses add so much to an arrangement that I consider them worth the trouble.
Snapdragons My favorite are the Rocket strain, which make tall spires of blooms in various colors. They over winter in my garden, but I rip them out and replant annually. Otherwise, they inevitably get covered with rust disease the second year.
Sunflowers Nothing says summer like sunflowers and there are so many nice cultivars to choose from now. You probably don’t want to grow ‘Mammoth Russian,’ since it’s hard to arrange blossoms that are a foot across.
Zinnias These annual beauties have a tremendously long season.
For cut flowers you want a nice big plant like State Fair strain or ‘Burpee
Giant.’ Zinnias are slug candy, so keep the bait traps handy.
Hortsense: Managing plant problems with Integrated Pest Management
