New to Cut Flowers? Start With These 7 Summer Favorites
Starting your first cut flower garden? These 7 summer favorites are easy to grow, great for beginners, and perfect for homegrown bouquets.
This time of year when the days are short and cold, I am constantly dreaming of the bounty that summer brings. Fresh vegetables, ripe fruit, bright herbs, and perhaps my favorite – summer flowers.
Not only do they bring beauty to your garden, but flowers also increase biodiversity in your garden and attract pollinators. So if you needed a reason to grow flowers, here’s your sign.
My favorite flowers to grow are cut flowers, simply because I like to bring all that beauty inside in the form of beautiful, homegrown bouquets. It’s such a simple way to bring joy to any space.
In this post, I’ll share my top 7 favorite summer cut flowers. These varieties are easy to grow, produce a bounty of blooms, and are great for cutting.
What You’ll Love About These 7 Cut Flower Favorites
Direct seed – All of these flowers can be direct seeded when the soil is warm – no transplanting required. I’ve had high germination rates with direct seeding, which is great for those wanting to minimize effort. Dahlias, however, are best grown from tubers if you want them to stay true to variety. Dahlia tubers can also go straight in the ground when the weather is optimal, making them pretty easy as well.
Inexpensive – Aside from dahlias, which are best grown from tubers and therefore a bit more expensive, starting flowers from seed means that your input costs remain pretty low.
Cut and come again – Many of these flowers will keep producing on the same plant when you harvest flowers. Some of the best at this are zinnias and dahlias. Others, like sunflowers, are single harvest – succession planting is the best way to grow a continuous crop.
7 Summer Cut Flower Favorites
Here is a quick list of my top 7 favorite summer cut flowers. Read on for a more in-depth description of each, growing tips, and specific variety suggestions.
- Amaranth
- Snapdragons
- Zinnias
- Red Shiso
- Sunflowers
- Celosia
- Dahlias
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Amaranth
I am amazed at how easy to grow and extremely productive these unique flowers are. Although the seeds are relatively small, they germinate like crazy and thrive in the heat of summer. Amaranth is a prolific and easy to grow filler flower, and also adds interest to bouquets with its velvety texture.
There are two main categories of Amaranth: the arched or upright varieties (pictured here), or the trailing varieties featuring rope-like tassels. I’ve had great success with Hot Biscuits and Red Spike. Grow Amaranth close together to prevent them from growing too large for bouquets.
Snapdragons
Snapdragons are easy to love and full of country charm. They come in different groups ranging from cool season to warm season. Although seeds are tiny, they do surprisingly well with direct seeding with careful watering.
The Potomac series is a popular choice for summer snapdragons, offering an array of bright blooms.
Zinnias
What can I say – Zinnias are absolute workhorses when it comes to summer cut flowers. They are, hands down, the easiest to grow and most productive blooms in my garden. Zinnias are also so fun because they come in a rainbow of colors.
Some popular varieties of zinnias include Benary’s Giant Series, Queeny Series, and Oklahoma Series.
Red Shiso
Shiso is actually an herb, but it makes a gorgeous filler in bouquets. With it’s rich maroon foliage and crimped leaves with serrated edges, Red Shiso provides just the textural interest that your bouquets need to go from home-grown to polished.
Chances are, you won’t find Red Shiso seed at your local farm & garden store, but you can usually find it at most seed suppliers online. Purple Ruffles is the most popular variety for cut flowers, but regular Red Shiso has worked well for me also.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers are a beloved summer flower, and for good reason! Bright and cheery, these blooms add joy to any bouquet. There are so many sunflowers to choose from, but make sure to choose pollenless varieties for cut flowers.
The ProCut series are reliable, single stem sunflowers great for cutting. Grow sunflowers close together to keep them from growing too large.
Celosia
Celosia comes in three forms: plumed, crested, and wheat celosia. All three forms are heat tolerant and produce unique velvety blooms that come in a variety of vibrant colors.
Pampas Plume celosia is a beautiful mix of bright, summery colors that is great for beginners and seasoned gardeners alike. The seed is inexpensive and although the seeds are small, direct seeding can work well. Celosia is a heat loving plant that is very sensitive to cold, so direct seeding works best in areas with long growing seasons.
Dahlias
No cut flower list would be complete without these beauties. Dahlias are amazing in that there are SO many shapes, colors and sizes to choose from – literally thousands of varieties that have been hybridized and can be grown from tubers.
Dahlias can also be grown from seed, although dahlias grown from seed will produce an amazingly diverse (and often unpredictable) collection of blooms. Tubers, on the other hand, are exact copies of the mother plant, so you know what you’re planting before it blooms.
You can source tubers from your local Dahlia Society, or many flower farmers and enthusiasts sell and ship tubers online. There are some diseases to watch out for with dahlias, so make sure you are buying tubers from a reputable source.
Where to Buy
With everything online these days, there are so many options for purchasing seeds and tubers, along with basically any other garden supply you could ever need. However, my go-to for purchasing both flower and vegetable seeds the last couple years has been Johnny’s seeds.
Dahlia tubers can be purchased online through many different sources, or locally through farmers or your local dahlia society. Floret Flowers has compiled a list of recommended sources that is helpful if you’re looking to order online.
I hope this post has inspired you to grow a cut flower garden this summer. I promise, you will not be disappointed! If you love growing cut flowers, please share your favorite varieties in the comments below.
