Planting and Maintaining a Cut Flower Garden at Home

Home , Flower garden

5/5/20

Margaret Pickoff County Horticulturist Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Mercer County www.mercer.njaes.rutgers.edu

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Cut flower gardens

• Plant in rows with walking paths for harvesting ease

• Choose plants based on desired arrangements, styles, scents, color schemes

• Look for long, sturdy stems and high production FloretFlowers

Annuals (tender and hardy)

• Flower, set seed, and die in one growing season Flowering Plants in the Landscape Garden cosmos Cosmos bipinnatus • Bloom over long period

• Often used to add bursts of color to gardens

Common zinnia Zinnia elegans

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Perennials Columbine Biennials Aquilegia

• Roots live, stems die • Vegetative growth in first year, flower and set seed in second year Canterbury bells • Less labor-intensive Campanula medium

• Require cold • Reproduce by seed, stratification if sown in divisions, cuttings spring • Shorter bloom period Cardinal flower Foxglove Lobelia cardinalis Digitalis

Flowering vines Flowering trees and shrubs

Arrowwood viburnum Viburnum dentatum • Vigorous growers • Pruning needs and maintenance depend on • Often require winter Trumpet vine species pruning Campsis radicans • Flowers, foliage, and fruit • Interesting tendrils and for arrangements foliage for arrangements • Upfront investment, longer to maturity Crabapple Clematis

Malus species ClemsonUniversity Clematis florida

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Spring-flowering bulbs

Frittilary • Food storage structure Frittilaria meleagris underground

• Bulbs (tulips), corms Garden Preparation (crocus), tubers (dahlia), rhizomes (lily-of-the- and Seed Starting valley), tuberous roots (ranunculus)

• Bloom year after year with proper care

Allium

Planting and soil conditions Assessing light conditions

• Full sun • Full sun = >6 hours direct

• Low wind sunlight per day

• Low perennial weed • Partial sun = 4 to 6 hours pressure • Partial shade = 2 to 4 hours • Fertile, well-drained soil • Shade = <2 hours • pH of 6.2 – 6.5

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Soil testing Address poor drainage

http://www.njaes.rutgers.edu/soil-testing-lab/

Starting seeds indoors Soil conditions • Soilless potting mix

• Seedling trays or pots • Soil aggregates: soil with drainage holes particles that bind together • Time seeding with frost-free date or • Working soil too often or planting date in mind when too wet can damage soil structure • Cover seed lightly with soil, keep warm and moist, plastic covering

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Transplants

• Two true leaves

• Harden off 2 weeks before planting

• Water within an hour of planting

• Mindful of spacing

https://awaytogarden.com/when-to-start-seeds-calculator/

Direct sowing

• Read seed packet!

• When to sow, seed depth and spacing, days to emergence

• Special germination instructions

• Check the date on old seed packets JoelIgnacio via Flickr

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Cold stratification Columbine

• Cold required to break seed Aquilegia dormancy

• Sow in fall for spring germination – risk natural Maintenance and Care elements Rudbeckia SusanBlack-eyed • Stratification: place seeds in plastic bag with moist

paper towel, sphagnum hirta moss, sand for 4 weeks

Watering Mechanical weed management

• 1 inch per week

• Deep, infrequent watering

• Morning or early afternoon

• Soaker hose, mulch

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Physical barriers and mulches Pinching back

• Organic mulches: grass clippings, • When 4 sets of leaves, straw, leaves, bark, newspaper, remove upper most growth at brown paper mulch node

• Create bushier plants • Synthetic mulches: black plastic, landscape fabric • More flowering stems

• Greater floral production

Dahlia, Longwood Gardens

Deadheading Ongoing care

• Thinning • Cut below spent flower, • Weeding above healthy leaves • Trellising and staking

• Longer bloom period • Fertilizing

• Dividing perennials Larkspur Delphinium

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Preventing deer damage • Damage appears as torn vegetation with jagged edge

• Avoid preferred species (tulips, daylily)

• Apply taste-based or odor-based repellants

University of Minnesota • Use exclusion fencing

FloretFlowers “Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance” (Rutgers Factsheet)

Managing diseases and pests

• Purchase high-quality, disease-free plants

• Check for obvious insect issues at point of purchase

• Choose disease and pest- resistant varieties

• Remove and destroy sickly plants from garden as Aster yellows on Echinacea soon as possible https://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/publication.php?pid=E014

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High producers

Choosing Plants Cosmos Zinnia

Rudbeckia Gomphrena

Medium producers Foliage plants and grasses

Eucalyptus

Panicum elegans

Sunflower Helianthus

Love-lies-bleeding Snapdragon Amaranthus Antirrhinum Bells of Ireland Moluccella laevis

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Filler flowers Other considerations Celosia

• Succession planting of annuals (group early, mid-, and late- season flowers grouped together)

• Plant taller flowers where they won’t shade out shorter ones

• Experiment with spacing Statice Yarrow Limonium Achillea millefolium

Flower harvest and vase life Cut flower garden resources

• Cut Flowers for the Market and Home Garden, Rutgers • Harvest using sharp, Cooperative Extension clean tools

• Creating a Cutting Garden, PennState Extension • Timing depends on species • Top-Rated Garden Flowers for Cutting, Michigan State University Extension • Long stems for vases, strip foliage • Field Grown Annuals for Cut Flowers, University of Massachusetts Extension • Tepid water, floral preservative

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Digital Tools and Resources Digital Tools and Resources

gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening

Cut flower garden resources

Margaret Pickoff County Horticulturist Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Mercer County 1440 Parkside Avenue, Ewing, NJ 08638 Phone: 609-989-6830 Email: [email protected]