Whether you are new to gardening or already have an active green thumb, growing flowers for cutting may not be something you have thought about including in your garden. I know when I first started my home garden I was completely focused on growing food (aside from a couple of tiny marigolds to help fend-off unwanted pests).
Now, over ten-years later, I still grow food but flowers are where it’s at!
How it all started:
After some reflection, I have pinned down the initial spark of my flower-growing enthusiasm to this moment: While working as a gardener in my early 20s, my friend/boss was collecting flowers from a client’s garden and said that she had been asked to create a space where the homeowner could come out and cut her own flowers. In that moment, I remember thinking to myself “That is so cool!”
Fast forward a few years, and my professional path had deviated from gardening into landscape architecture. As a recent grad with a new awareness for urban design and how people live in the built landscape, I was awakening to the notion that our cities could be so much more sustainable if we tapped into the unused space in our yards for growing food. This concept wove its way into my thesis work and again later when I had the chance to contribute to a book titled ‘Agricultural Urbanism.’
Ultimately, it wove its way into my personal life, as our lawn was replaced with raised beds and a corner of our garage was converted into a chicken coop!
One day, while picking veggies, I decided to pick a bouquet from the perennial flowers around the house. My memory of that initial spark had vanished and I felt nervous about making a big gap in my garden if I picked too many flowers.
But I enjoyed those flowers on my kitchen table so much that I started researching how to grow cutting-flowers at home. The spark was back!
Now entering my third season of home-grown blooms, I am excited to share why I grow flowers with the hope of inspiring you to try it too!
So, why grow cutting-flowers?
… To Connect
Flowers invite me outdoors to connect with and observe nature all year-long. We are very lucky to live in a climate that allows nearly year-round gardening (zone 8 is pretty great!). From the early spring-bulbs emerging through frost to the late-autumn bustle of chickadees and jays pecking away at sunflower seeds; flowers bring life into the garden.
A yard filled with pollinators – various species of bees, butterflies, birds, and more – makes me smile! Flowers are a sure-fire way to support pollinators, which in turn support us.
Flowers connect me with people too. There is a growing local flower culture on Vancouver Island and across North America where farmers, gardeners and florists are realizing the incredible quality, variety and freshness of locally grown blooms. Plus, you can feel good about the environmental benefit of enjoying flowers that haven’t flown in from countries across the world.
… For Inspiration
Flowers are some of nature’s most awe-inspiring masterpieces. Colour, texture, symmetry, form, fragrance: all on display for a fleeting moment in time.
The act of planning a cutting-garden is an inspiring and creative process - choosing colours and shapes, considering seasonal interest and complimentary varieties, and figuring out how on Earth to fit all my favourites into a limited space!
Then, once the blooms start flowing by the bucket-full it’s like working with living paint! Maybe it’s my Dutch heritage, but making a garden bouquet to honour and display nature’s masterpieces is very inspiring.
… To Share
Did I mention ‘bucket-fulls?’ Flowers, especially annual flowers, are prolific since they need to finish their lifecycle in one growing season. The more you cut, the more they bloom! Needless to say, you will have extra flowers to share or give away to friends and family.
One of my favorite things to do is collect a garden bouquet and leave it on a friend’s porch for her birthday.
Sharing flowers is not only important on the human level but also with, you guessed it, the birds and bees. It’s ok to leave some flowers! Let the bees collect the pollen and let the flowers go to seed so the birds have some winter food. Sharing with nature is just as important as sharing with each other. And… if you’re lucky… your bee-keeper neighbour just might share his honey with you!
What’s your Why?
I would love to hear why you grow flowers! And if this is new to you, I would love to help you learn! Kinglet Consulting can teach you how to grow and cut flowers so you can enjoy their beauty both inside and out.
If you want to try growing a small cut-flower patch this summer, sign-up to my mailing list and get your free guide: Four Easy-to-Grow Annual Flowers for the Nanaimo Area Home Garden. You can also order a Cut-Flower Starter Pack, which includes seeds from each of the plants in this guide.
It's good for nature and it's good for you.
Happy Gardening!
Kelsey