Grow The Best Old-Fashioned Flowers For Cutting

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In: Flowers, Garden, Garden Basics
Cosmos growing beside a fence in the cutting garden.

Grow The Best Old-Fashioned Flowers For Cutting

Do you remember your Grandparent’s garden when you were growing up? There was something so special about the old-fashioned flowers they grew. You could wander through the garden and feel a sense of peace and calm. The bees were buzzing all around. Birds were enjoying the seed pods. And you were enjoying the little flowers exploding everywhere.

Back when you were young, you probably didn’t think much about what was in your grandparent’s garden, you just knew that it was special. Today, you can recreate that magical place in your own garden by adding in old-fashioned flowers. Growing these old-fashioned flowers provides so many wonderful benefits.

Why Grow Old-Fashioned Flowers for Cutting…

They Smell Wonderful

Many of the old-fashioned varieties of flowers have a lovely fragrance that newer flower varieties don’t have. Whenever you’re walking through your garden, you can get a whiff of sweet smelling fragrances. Bring a vase indoors and the smells can be heavenly.

These Flowers are Often Easier to Grow

Many of today’s newer hybrids can be a challenge to grow from seed. You often have to purchase the plants. The old-fashioned flowers are usually very easy to grow from seeds, so they will be less expensive and you’ll get more plants. You can also collect seeds from year to year to save even more money.

When You Cut Them They Grow More Flowers

Many of these plants will naturally produce abundant flowers the more you cut them. This will increase the amount of flowers you’ll have to make bouquets. Of course, this depends on the flower. Some flowers such as peonies and lilacs only set a certain number of flower buds and cutting them will not increase your production.

Pathway with old fashioned flowers growing.

Many Old-Fashioned Flowers Have a Long Growing Season

Depending on the flower, you can often get blooms all summer long. This is great for a cut flower garden because we want to have an abundance of flowers.

These Older Varieties of Flowers are Often More Disease Resistant

With many of these old-fashioned flowers, they have stood the test of time and are less likely to be damaged by pests and plant diseases. That doesn’t mean they are problem free, but they tend to have fewer issues.

Related: How to Create a Cutting Garden

Old-Fashioned Flowers to Grow in Your Garden for Cutting…

Annuals

  • ZinniaOld fashioned Zinnias growing in the cut flower garden.
  • Sweet Pea
  • Sunflowers
  • SnapdragonWhite Snapdragons growing in the cut flower garden.
  • Bachelor Buttons
  • Heliotrope
  • PoppiesPoppies make an attractive flower in the cut flower garden.
  • Cosmos
  • Stock

Perennials

  • Black-Eyed Susan
  • Hollyhocks
  • DahliasOld fashioned Dahlias growing in the cut flower garden.
  • Daylilies
  • Shasta DaisiesOld fashioned Shasta Daisies growing in the garden.
  • Larkspur
  • Sweet William (Biennial)
  • PhloxOld fashioned Phlox in the cut flower garden.
  • Lavender
  • Foxglove (Biennial)Tall spires of Foxglove growing in the garden.
  • Lupine
  • Salvia

Unless you have a huge garden area and an endless supply of energy, you don’t want to grow all of these flowers. Growing a cutting garden takes work to maintain. You will regularly need to dead-head, prune, and fertilize your plants. Take my advice and start with three to four out of each of the annual and perennial categories. Select a variety of styles. Choose some tall, spiky plants, some rounder varieties, some wispy or lacy types and a few shorter, fuller varieties.

Do some research to make sure you are getting plants that work in your garden area. For example, I love hollyhocks, however, if your cutting garden is small you might not want to grow them. They can spread and quickly take over your garden space in a few years if allowed to go to seed.

Growing a cutting garden is such a pleasure and using old-fashioned garden flowers will give you abundant blooms for cutting. These are heirloom flowers that have stood the test of time. Grow these blooms and you can enjoy the beauty of flowers all summer long and be able to cut them for your own bouquets and to give away.

When you grow old-fashioned flowers in your cutting garden, it’s like taking a step back in time. When you were young, with endless hours to wander through your grandparent’s garden. You can enjoy a bit of nostalgia every time you walk through your garden when you grow these lovely flowers.