Reap The Benefits Of A Cutting Garden

Posted on: 10 May 2016

Gardens are wonderful. You walk through them, appreciate the view, and literally stop to smell the roses. However, the value of your garden increases when you cut the flowers and create pretty bouquets. It's possible to add a small mini garden to your existing yard or to make over a whole garden. Enjoy the benefits of having a cutting garden in your backyard.

Start with Roses

The most obvious flowers for your cutting garden are roses. Indeed, you can use rose bushes as your foundational plants. Select varieties that thrive in your climate. Likewise, look for bold bloom colors and sweet fragrance.

Look for Other Appropriate Blooms

Part of the charm of a cutting garden is being able to arrange the flowers into a pretty bouquet. For this reason, Sunset Magazine recommends looking for flowers with tall stems, as well as long bloom times and vase life. The magazine recommends planting corn cockle, zinnia, cosmos, and Minoan lace.

The prettiest bouquets often include a focal point flower. As such, you should include at least a few plants with big and bold flowers. For example, some peonies, such as festiva maxima, offer double blossoms, which make pretty focal flowers. Giant white calla lily, Siberian iris and dahlia also provide the showy blossoms appropriate for focal flowers.

Assemble your Supplies

Before you get to the actual planting, facilitate the task by buying all your supplies ahead of time. Obviously you'll need the plants, so plan out which ones you want and how many you'll need to fill your space. When in doubt, buy more – you can always transform a corner or plant a container garden. Include also fertilizer and compost. Additionally, look at your gardening tools and decide which need replacing as well as how you can augment your supply.

Specific to a cutting garden, you'll need bamboo stakes and garden twine for supporting your flowers. Likewise, assemble your cutting tools as well – pointed scissors, lightweight gloves, by-pass pruners and a cutting basket.

Create a Pretty Garden

To create your cutting garden, choose the planting spaces, paying attention to the conditions that will let your flowers thrive. Prepare the area by working a layer of organic material into the top layer of soil or building raised beds. Before taking your plants out of their pots, set them out to get a feel for how the garden will look. The cutting garden should be as pretty as the resultant bouquets, so start with big, central plants and surround them with flowers of varying heights. Have supplies and soil brought in if necessary by a local company, such as Charles Bopst Trucking.

Imagine a lush and colorful cutting garden that you use to create custom bouquets of flowers.

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