How To Plant A Cutting Garden

It’s very encouraging all if we can bring freshness and fragrant flowers that grow beautifully in the garden into our homes, usually it’s known as a cutting garden.

The National Garden Bureau offers the following tips for planting a cutting garden:

- For best production, pick a sunny spot with well-drained soil. If the soil is poor, mix in compost or peat moss.
- Before planting, mix into the soil a granular, slow-acting fertilizer. This will provide consistent, balanced nutrition to plants over many weeks.
- During the growing season, use periodic doses of diluted liquid fertilizer to boost production.
- Rather than inter plant seeds or young transplants of many different kinds of flowers, group the species together for ease of harvest and efficient use of space. Plant tall types together, away from where they might shade smaller ones.
- For instance, plant pansies in an area for an early supply of flowers during cool weather.
- Don’t forget foliage plants that contribute texture and color to fresh flower arrangements.
- Planting bulbs such as tulips and daffodils in the fall is usually regarded as a virtually foolproof way to obtain flowers for cutting in the spring, at least the first year you plant them. In cutting gardens, they can be planted much closer together than is usually recommended, supplying a mass of blooms for both cutting and outdoor display.
- Summer bulbs including gladiolas, dahlias and tuberose’s can also be planted successively in small batches once the danger of frost has passed, to yield an ongoing supply of fresh flowers.

To get the best performance from any cut flower, it’s best to do the cutting in the morning, and then get the stems in water immediately, a feat best accomplished by carrying a pail of water into the garden with you.