Introducing the 2021 Summer Cutting Garden Lineup!

We’ll be focusing on the summer flowers - partially because they’re a lot more straightforward compared to the spring flowers (no cold stratification, no long period of cool temperatures needed for success, more uniform summer conditions for flowering and harvesting) and partially because they’re a lot easier, which means you’ll have a higher chance of success (which is important in my book. Easy wins are important!)

We’ve already planted out our spring flowers (see Our 2021 Spring Cutting Garden post) but we’re are gearing up for our summer flowers, which run from approximately June through October.

I know it seems a bit premature to be planning for summer flowers right now when we’ve barely started into spring, but good flowers require planning ahead, and since we have a relatively short spring (around 3 months) compared to our much longer summer and fall (5 months) it’s important to plan for your summer blooms early on.

These also aren’t the only flowers or plants that we’re growing this year. We are lucky enough to be able to be growing on a larger property that allows us to have multiple gardens - the 400 square foot cut flower garden is only one of the gardens we’re working on - so you’ll see other flowers or plants that we’re growing in other areas when we’re designing of discussing cut flowers. But if we had to grow in just 400 square feet, we would be growing the flowers we’ve selected here because they are tried and true varieties that will produce a wide variety of floral materials that will work well in the vase and also look great in the garden too!

The seeds for these varieties should be widely available (although with COVID restrictions this year the seed shipping has been taking a long time - you may want to get on ordering seeds now if you haven’t already) and are not super expensive or exclusive. The only plants that may be difficult to get a hold of would be the dahlia tubers (they’re apparently the hottest flower and garden plant to grow right now and tubers are selling out as soon as they go on sale) but we’ll also be growing some dahlias from seed (!) so you can still enjoy growing them in your garden if you can’t get dahlia tubers (see “The Dahlias” below).

We also have quite a few varieties of flowers that are being kept over from the spring. Here, we can continue to get quite a few blooms from scabiosa, phlox, California poppies, calendula, daucus and cerinthe, and even usual spring bloomers like sweet peas and Icelandic poppies will continue to bloom for us into July (albeit with the flowers getting smaller and smaller). It’s kind of nice because we don’t need to replant everything and can keep some of our existing plants growing.

With that in mind, we’ll be discussing our new flowers that we’ll be adding to our lineup.

Basil ‘Cinnamon’

For those of you who have followed us on social media for a while or read this blog for a while, you know that I’m a big fan of basil as a foliage and cut flower material. Big long stems with glossy leaves, elegant deep dusky purple flower spikes with light lavender florets and of course that lovely spicy herbal scent that just wafts off the plant when you brush against it (or brush against it in an arrangement) it is a prolific and favorite material for us to grow (and have done so for the past six years of professional flower growing).

Our favorite variety is ‘Cinnamon’. Of all the basil we’ve grown, it is the most vigorous, has the tallest stems, and is the most reliable when it come to hydration compared to other basil when being used as a floral material.

We’ll be growing it in cell trays but you can also direct sow it when the weather gets warmer - it does well during the hot days of summer, germinating quickly and easily.

Celosia ‘Texas Plume’

It’s been a few years since we grew celosia - it’s a plant that very much enjoys our growing environment but is also a cut flower material I found to be rather uninteresting when compared to other cut flower varieties.

However, a new strain of celosia known as ‘Texas Plume’ - grown by long term flower farmers the Arnoskys in Texas - has shown itself to be very attractive with muted colors of dusky pink, champagne and golden yellow in large feathery plumes more similar to pampas grass than your usual celosia, making for a wonderful textural addition to any arrangement it is a part of.

Celosia loves sun and heat and will grow quite prolifically during the heat of summer - one of the reasons why it is such a popular cut flower for farmer’s markets and summer bouquets and gardens.

Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’

When checking out the comments of people who had grown and trialed this cosmos, a lot of them were disappointed. They mentioned that the stems were very short, the flowers were rather small and unimpressive and they wouldn’t grow them again.

I personally was exhilirated at hearing this because it meant first of all that there wouldn’t be a rush on these seeds, and secondly it meant that this was the cosmos I had been waiting for when it comes to floral design.

Look, I love the big and tall cosmos just as much as the next person - but they’re very large and in charge, and they can be very disruptive when it comes to a floral arrangement. For example, cosmos ‘Purity’ can get really large flowers - 3” across in some cases, which is wonderful to see in the garden but is less useful in the vase.

If the cosmos however are shorter and more delicate on thinner stems and smaller blooms - such as with cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’ - the better off we’re going to be in incorporating those blooms and stems into arrangements without taking the attention away from other flowers.

We shall see how it performs - I’ve heard mixed reports as far as the germination and cultivation of ‘Apricot Lemonade’ but I’m excited for the soft golden-pink coloration and smaller blooms that can tuck and weave around in between other flowers and materials in arrangements.

Zinnia ‘Cresto! Peach’

Although a fan of the Zinderella series of zinnias, we’re going to be trying the Cresto! series this year because they allegedly have a higher percentage of double flowers. Even if they don’t, I’m excited for the colors - pale lilac to a golden warm peach colored, similar to the color range between the Zinderella Peach and Zinderella Lilac varieties (which I suspect they are either descended from or are the progenitors of).

The Cresto! series are small flowering zinnias - 1-2” at max - and may occasionally have a wonderful puff-ball-shaped form that makes the texture and form of the zinnia more like a double-flowering echinacea. More often they may just have a flat center, but they form very nice focal flowers with a bright pink disc and bright yellow stamens that make for a much more elegant flower in an arrangement.

Zinnia ‘Little Flower Girl Mix’

I snatched some of these seeds from Floret, knowing that I would have a small window of time to obtain them. Since zinnias grow so well here, I wanted to grow some and see how they would do in our dry, sunny environment - perfect for zinnia cultivation.

The coloration would be similar to the Zinderella series - pale almost white lilac and a faded, antiqued peach or gold color, but instead of the open-faced form of the Zinderellas they seem to have more of the multi-petaled, multi-tiered ‘Oklahoma’ series that are almost like a beehive-style flower in some cases.

We’ll see how they do - I suspect that it may be hard to tell where the ‘Little Flower GIrl’ and ‘Cresto! Peach’ series end wand where the other begins, but we won’t know until they bloom. Either way, they provide plenty of small, delicate, beautifully colored zinnias that can be used for floral design to create wonderfully colored, soft hued bouquets and arrangements.

Zinnia ‘Oklahoma Salmon’

A staple for us, Oklahoma salmon zinnias are a true workhorse of a flower especially during the summer. Their pinky-salmony-peachy tones work well to bridge between redder-burgundy-fuschia tones with the paler blush, peachy, pink tones and pair well with the other dahlias and zinnias we’re growing.

More importantly, the Oklahoma zinnias are some of the most prolific and consistent summer flowers that we grow, blooming hard from June until frost and is absolutely covered in blooms at all times and continues to grow and give all season long. Although each bloom itself is not necessarily that impressive, when used collectively to surround other flowers they really support the other flowers, bringing out their best qualities and colors.

Zinnia ‘Queen Lime Orange’

I love the queen series of zinnias and the Queen Lime Orange cultivar is no exception. Peachy and warm toned with golden-chartreuese petals in the center, they are quite a beautiful and unusual zinnia, sometimes creating a perfectly spherical bloom - an excellent pairing with the peachy colored dahlias of ‘Cornel Bronze’ and ‘Amber Queen’ and ‘Henriette’.

Although not quite as prolific as the ‘Oklahoma’ series, the ‘Queen’ series are still quite as productive and will produce many many blooms for us all the way through until frost. We use them as focal flowers as well as supporting flowers for larger dahlias, and they really catch the eye with their pink centers highlighted by the golden/chartreuse petals that collect in the center. They’re quite the breeding achievement and one we will never be without.

THE DAHLIAS

So a disclaimer that the dahlias we’re growing are (with the exception of the seed-sown ‘Sunny Reggae’) are grown from tubers that we have either saved or purchased. You won’t be able to grow these from seed, and you won’t be able to find dahlia tubers generally speaking after April or so, but we wanted to share the dahlias that we’re growing just so that you can have an idea of the dahlias that we’ve chosen and the accompanying characteristics and traits that led to our dahlia selection.

I’ll have to admit that half of our summer flowers are dahlias - there’s truly nothing like them, and in a sense everything else is just the side dish because of their beauty and their massive productivity. We dedicate half of our growing area to them, and they just keep giving us armloads of flowers every week until our first frost.

Dahlia ‘Amber Queen’

We’re always fans of soft peachy-coral-salmon hued flowers - it’s kind of our thing - and ‘Amber Queen’ is no exception to that. A tiny pompon-sized dahlia, they are of similar color and form to ‘Cornel Bronze’ - but in miniature size of 2” in diameter. The color is described as a soft peach with dusky warm rust tones.

It’s also advertised as an early and prolific blooming dahlia - typical of a pompon dahlia growth habit, but I’m excited nevertheless for it. Ours will be coming from our friend Amy at Laughing Goat Flower Farm

Dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’

The queen of summer, we’ve grown many many other dahlias and have found none to be equal to Cafe au Lait. A stunning dinnerplate dahlia, Cafe au Lait has an inconsistent color pattern - ranging from bright pink to light true blush to a creamy ivory color that will shift and change in each individual plant as well as shifting across the season - but is a favorite of ours as a result of its ever shifting color.

Truly splendid in its form, it’s not the most prolific of the dahlias that we’ve grown but they are worth growing for the reason that they are so splendid and beautiful. We had one season where we didn’t grow them, and I missed them greatly - they will always be a mainstay here in our garden.

Dahlia ‘Cornel Bronze’

Another favorite of ours that we will always be including in our summer lineup, Cornel Bronze is that same lovely warm peachy-orange hue that is quite subtle but intriguingly beautiful, seemingly with multiple color hues depending on how you look at it and the way the light is hitting it.

A sturdy and prolific bloomer, it’s actually a random mutation or “sport” of the regularly bright red ‘Cornel’ variety - from where it gets its name. Long straight stems and a perfectly spherical or ball-shaped flower, it pairs well with just about any flower and will give you plenty of flowers over the growing season.

Dahlia ‘Creme de Cognac’

Although everyone knows about dahlia ‘Creme de Cassis’, little know about its lesser known counterpart, ‘Creme de Cognac’. Golden petals with a dark dusky purple-wine colored center, it’s quite an unusually colored dahlia but it’s one that we’re really excited about adding to the usual sea of burgundy and blush colored dahlias.

A prolific bloomer with its formal decorative form, we’ll also be growing out some ‘Creme de Cassis’ for its milky purple and purple coloration forming a nice pairing with ‘Creme de Cognac’.

Dahlia ‘Henriette’

We’re super excited about this dahlia! New to us, we were inspired by a gorgeous floral arrangement created by Sarah Raven in combination with dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’ - a perfect pairing, like chocolate and peanut butter (or kimchi and cheddar cheese - don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) the spikey, sea-urchin like delicate petals of Henriette are the perfect foil to the large fluffy flat petals of Cafe au Lait, pairing well with its peachy-pink rosy coloration and spikey/fringey shape. Reported by some to be very prolific on long elegant stems.

Dahlia ‘Ivanetti’

Another pompon, this one has a completely different color scheme - more of a dark purple or true maroon rather than a burgundy and is around 2” across in diameter, so again on the smaller side. A highly productive plant, the color can take more of a purple or more of a red coloration depending on growing conditions and the light. I’m excited to pair it with ‘Rip City’ which has a similar coloration.

Dahlia ‘Rip City’

The dark dinnerplate dahlia of your dreams, we grew ‘Rip City’ last year and enjoyed its dusky, burgundy blooms that were so darkly colored it was almost a reddish-black in the evening light. A tremendously rich colored dahlia, it’s also prolific both in terms of its blooms and its tubers, producing wildly well for us. I’m excited to pair it with ‘Ivanetti’ given that they have similar colors and will work nicely in combination.

Dahlia ‘Sweet Nathalie’

The formal decorative form of Sweet Nathalie lends well to floral design and arranging - mixing in perfectly for an arrangement or bouquet - and is of the same color range as ‘Cafe au Lait’ with an almost silvery-pink coloration and sometimes taking on creamy or ivory tones.

It’s also prolific, pumping out plenty of stems with large and beautiful blooms with their perfectly symmetrical design - wonderful for those brides requesting soft muted colors (especially a true blush) as well as pairing with ‘Cafe au Lait’ and ‘Henriette’.

Dahlia ‘Sunny Reggae’

The only seed-grown dahlia from the whole bunch, ‘Sunny Reggae’ is actually a seed mix that is sold with flowers that range from bright orange to a soft apricot to a light golden yellow in coloration. It’s a collarette form, which means that it doesn’t have the longest vase life but its form and color makes it a welcomed addition to designs (so long as they don’t have to last more than a day or two in the vase, such as with wedding work).

We use Sunny Reggae as a sort of “filler” dahlia - giving the same multipetaled, layered appearance but more as a flower to kind of tuck in around any open spaces or to emphasize the form and texture and color of other dahlias in an arrangement. Given its soft colors, it pairs well with any of the other peachy colored dahlias but also contrasts well with the burgundy or maroon colored dahlias as well.

It grows a bit on the short side, only reaching around 24” at maximum height, but it is still tall enough to use in centerpiece designs and is a very prolific and quick-growing flower, blooming in just around 90 days from seed (and can be started early on to obtain an earlier bloom).

Dahlia ‘Tartan’

We grew this dahlia several years ago, and were happy with its appearance and performance. An old-fashioned dahlia, it is definitely an unusual colored flower with bicolored blooms of alternating dark purple and stark white to create a stunning, striped appearance of its blooms. I’m glad this one is returning this year, and we’re excited to have its blooms this year.