For Your Consideration, Perennials For Your Cut Flower Garden

It is easy to grow your own flowers for arrangements.  Many people typically use annual flowers but perennials can also make great cut flowers.  Besides brightening your floral arrangements, they also brighten your garden. 

Here are six perennials to consider adding to if you are interested in having a cut flower garden:

Blazing Star

Also known as Liatris or Gayfeather this perennial plant is a native wildflower from the Midwest.  It is a distinctive plant in that the flowers open from the top-down rather than from the bottom up.  For best-growing performance, this plant wants full sun conditions with soil that drains well.  It has purple or white flowers with delicate grass-like foliage and starts blooming in early summer.  The unique flower spikes grow 1 to 5 feet and are magnets for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. You might have to stake this plant if you locate it in an exposed area that is subject to high winds. Blazing Star can survive in garden zones 3 through 9 but may need a winter mulch in zones 3 through 6. The plant is also drought-tolerant once it is established.

Delphinium

Delphinium plants have beautiful spikes of colorful flowers in blue, pink, purple, and white.  The blue and purple are my favorite.  This flower can be a little more demanding to grow than other perennials because it prefers moist, cool summers and does not do well in hot, dry weather.  The plant also does not like wind and rain.  Because of this, the plant needs to be staked. There are new varieties being developed that alleviate some of these problems.  These showy flowers will bloom in June and July.  They require 6-8 hours of sun a day.  Gentle morning and early afternoon sun is best.  Grow them in the back of a mixed border or if you are looking for a vertical accent give them a try. Depending on the variety they can grow 2 to 6 feet tall.  The plant is considered toxic so be careful.  They are hardy for zones 3–7.

Japanese Anemone

While the plant is named Japanese Anemone, the plant actually comes from China but has been cultivated in Japan for hundreds of years.  The clusters of cheerful flowers can bring life to your fading summer garden as they bloom in the late summer – early fall time frame.  These perennials are 2-3 inches wide and come in pink, rose, and white with yellow button-like centers encircled with yellow stamens.  This plant is a sun lover and enjoys being planted in rich, well-drained soil.  Keep the soil moist to enjoy more blooms.  The plant grows 3 feet tall and wide. They attract butterflies and are deer and rabbit resistant.   Japanese Anemone will spread enthusiastically when happy, so make sure to give it space to grow, so it won’t crowd other plants.  Hardiness zones 4-8.

Lady’s Mantle

Lady’s Mantle is a good choice for the front of a shady garden border as it only grows 6 inches to 12 inches tall. Its gray-green foliage has a scallop pattern similar to that of a Geranium. In late spring and early summer, it produces small yellow flowers and after it rains the water beads on its leaves as if it has a waterproof coating. Whether you are growing a cottage or a cutting garden, Lady’s Mantle looks great with other spring-flowering plants. It is hardy in garden zones 3 through 7 and once established does not require special attention or fertilization. Although it prefers moist soils it will rot if the soil isn’t draining properly.

Obedient Plant

Obedient Plant gets its name because you can bend the individual flowers in any direction.  The plant is also known as False Dragonhead most likely because it looks like a Snapdragon.  It is an herbaceous perennial and wildflower that grows up to 4' tall. The tubular flowers come in lavender, pink, purple, and white and often have dots, fine stripes, or swirls of a slightly darker color.  The flowers grow long spikes, in four neat vertical rows. They begin to open from the bottom up.  The flowers are unscented. These plants are hardy from zones 2 to 8. They prefer full sun but also do well in partial shade, especially during dry summers.  Make sure you keep the plant consistently moist. Obedient Plants bloom in late summer and continue well into the fall. This plant spreads aggressively, so be careful. They are easy enough to pull. Make sure you do this before they seed.

Peony

In the spring Peonies light up a garden with their colorful flowers which look wonderful in flower arrangements.  The fragrant flowers come in coral, pink, red, white, yellow, and bi-color.  You can also get single or double flower varieties.  Peonies are shrub-like plants that grow 2–3 feet. Depending on the variety of Peony the bloom times can be from early spring through early summer.  These shrubs are deer and rabbit resistant.  Peonies perform best when planted in full sun and well-drained soil.  To keep the plant looking best, remove the faded flowers and clip away dead foliage.  This plant is hardy for zones 3-8.

Let us know if you have any other perennials you use in your floral arrangements.

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