Flowers are the beating heart of the garden, bringing beauty, color, and changeability to our growing spaces. Flowers lift our spirits and brighten our day, and their gifts can work double time when the blooms that are grown in the garden are then cut, arranged, and brought inside.
If designing your own cut flower garden has felt overwhelming, we are here to say that you can grow a stunning cut flower garden in less space and less time than you may have thought! Our step-by-step guide to designing a cut flower garden provides guidelines for how to think about color, a list of essential long-blooming and specialty plants, and advice on layout with an example plan that you can replicate in your own garden.
Examples of Cut Flower Garden Planting Combinations
The right cut flower combinations work just as well in the landscape as they do in the vase. Find inspiration from the plant combinations and color palettes from our blog The 7 Best Long-Flowering Plants for Growing Cut Flowers!
Step 1: Start With Your Color Palette
The perfect cut flower garden should be a strong, cohesive feature in your garden, along with being beautiful to work with in the vase. In order to achieve a space that functions well as a garden and as a source of cut flowers, you absolutely must be selective about color.
When the options of colors in the flower world are endless (trust us, they really are!) our biggest piece of advice is to start with what you like! The way to create a fail-proof cut flower garden is to start with flowers that connect with you. Does coral make your heart sing? Think white is the most elegant thing in the world? Fantastic—start with your favorite flower color and then build your palette out around it.
In the custom color palettes we’ve created for each of our Landscape Design Guides, color is used to create spaces that are serene or energizing, collected or uplifting. Use our palettes as a guiding light, but feel free to mix and match colors that speak to you. No matter your palette, it’s a good idea to limit yourself to no more than five or six colors to keep the look intentional in the garden and help give you some guardrails as you take a stroll through the garden center!
Examples of Cut Flower Garden Color Palettes
Fans of bold, saturated colors might be inspired by the strong, rich colors in the Jewel palette from our Traditional Guide or the fiery tones of the Exotic palette from our Tropical Design Guide.
People who prefer a timeless approach might be drawn to classic cottage garden pinks and purples in our Nostalgic palette, or may prefer the simple and elegant look of white, ivory, and pale pink Chic palette. If the current trend toward muted, subdued colors is more your style, the modern pastels in the Romantic palette, or the pairing of wine-rich reds and muddy mauves from our Composed palette, will be good starting points for you.
Step 2: Prepare Your Planting Space
Long (8–10 feet), relatively narrow (3–6 feet) beds work well for cut flowers as they provide a lot of visual impact while maintaining access to plants that may be towards the back of the bed. You’ll need to be able to step into the bed to cut flowers and care for your plants, but don’t feel that you need to create large walkways. Simple, narrow paths or well-placed stepping stones or blocks can help provide access without sacrificing valuable planting space.
In-ground planting offers the most long-term value in the landscape and will set larger shrubby plants up for the greatest success. Mulch beds generously before planting with 4 inches of good planting compost which will get worked into the beds as you plant. Topdress with an additional 2 inches of mulch after your planting is complete to give the bed a finished look, suppress weeds, and help retain precious water.
Cutting gardens can be grown in raised beds or large containers if space is limited or easier access is desired. If possible, make sure the raised bed is open on the bottom to the soil below so larger plants can access the deeper soils over time which will lead to stronger roots and less need to water. When growing cut garden flowers in container gardens, focus on plants that produce many blooms and require frequent deadheading so that cutting your flowers regularly doesn’t take away from the overall floral display of the pot.
Cut Flower Garden Design Example Layout
Here a 4-foot by 10-foot bed is used to grow an abundance of cut flowers for personal use. Not only does this layout provide lots of flowers to work with, it will look beautiful as a feature bed in your garden. Borrowing colors from our Romantic Palette will allow you to have a look that is quietly colorful, cohesive, and incredibly beautiful.
Step 3: Select Large, Foundational Shrubs to Anchor the Garden
The right shrub in the right place acts as the hero of the cut flower garden, providing woody structure, scaffolding for smaller plants to grow around, and larger-than-life, long-blooming statement flowers to work with. Shrubs help set the intention and tone of the entire planting look, acting as the most permanent element of your cut garden flower bed. They are an investment, so be sure you’re selecting a flower shape, color, and style that really speaks to you. While our favorite long-flowering shrubs for cut flowers, Roses and Hydrangeas, can grow quite tall (and tall plants have longer stem lengths!) dwarf options of both are available for planting beds that must stay below a certain height.
Using Roses as Cut Flowers
Roses are the ideal shrub if you’re growing cut flowers. They are prolific, fragrant, and come in a mind-boggling large number of colors and forms. No matter what kind of look or aesthetic you’re after in your cut flower garden, we all but guarantee that there is a Rose to satisfy your needs, and our Rose Trends of 2026 help reinforce that idea. Whether you’re all about moody, muted hues or are open to rethinking pink as a neutral, Roses are an essential element of the perfect cutting garden.
Using Hydrangeas as Cut Flowers
Our second favorite shrub for cut flower usage is, without a doubt, Hydrangeas. While Mopheads are beloved for their colors and fluffy heads, it’s really the Panicle Hydrangeas that we are after when selecting the perfect cut flower garden shrub. These plants are gorgeous in the vase when tightly budded, look lovely as their emerging, greenish flowers arrive, are spectacular when fully exploded in whites, ivories, and blush. On top of everything else, they look phenomenal when dried!
Woody Shrubs for Cut Flower Gardens
If space in your garden or bed allows, Lilac, Abelia, and Rose of Sharon are great additions to a cut flower garden. Lilacs bring Springtime fragrance and abundance, Abelia is phenomenal for foliage and flowers, and Rose of Sharon kicks into gear in the late-Summer as many other plants are growing weary.
Shrub Placement in Cut Flower Beds
Place shrubs in the center or slightly towards the back of the bed, leaving room around them for other plants. Depending on the size of the bed, you can plant as few as three shrubs. For a symmetrical, more organized look, place shrubs evenly across the bed, or stagger them slightly. For a freer, more engaging design, we like pairing two or three complementary shrubs together in varying heights to one side, and then putting a grand large shrub at the opposite end of the bed.
Step 4: Dot With Perennials to Stitch the Look Together
Perennials are a tremendous help in a cut flower garden because they strengthen the look of your color palette, provide long periods of flowers, and don’t need to be replanted each year. They are often a bit pricier but are well worth it because they will grow larger and larger over time.
Our favorite Perennials for cut flower gardens have long periods of blooms and make great fillers and addition to the larger statement flowering shrubs chosen for your palette. Perennials are perfect when viewed as a “best supporting actor”, providing harmony and echoing the intention you’ve set with your leading star shrubs.
The Best Long-Blooming Perennials for Cut Flowers
Echinacea, Foxglove, and Scabiosa were all instant shoo-ins for our 7 Best Long-Blooming Cut Flowers blog. As the name suggests, these plants will all produce flowers over a long period and do very well with frequent cutting. We love the long-lasting, textural interest that Echinacea brings to bouquets and how low-maintenance they are in the garden. Foxgloves are one of our treasured native plants that comes in a huge range of colorful cultivars and adds huge visual interest to landscape beds or cut flower arrangements. Scabiosa is dainty, delicate, and can be used in arrangements as a bud, a flower in full bloom, or as a unique seedhead. Plus, with the addition of annual Scabiosa available early in the season, the color palette greatly expands beyonds cooler blues, pinks and whites of perennial varieties.
Using Vines for Cut Flowers
Perennial and woody vines add stylish movement to both beds and floral arrangements. The irregularities of their forms, the way they climb up obelisks or trail over the edge of a vase make vining plants one of our favorite elements for cut flower gardens. Honeysuckle is at the top of our list for perennial vines for cut flowers because of its intoxicating fragrance and value to bees and butterflies in the landscape. Clematis can also make a phenomenal addition to a cut flower garden, with its vast range of colors and phenomenal, fluffy seed heads.
Decadent, Shorter Season Cut Flowers
If growing cut flowers is really your thing and you don’t mind sacrificing bloom length for intensity of flowers, you should absolutely add Peonies or Irises to your cut flower garden. Both Peonies and Irises are decadent floral additions that make up for their short bloom period with breathtaking, high-impact flowers. Peonies stun with their humongous, fluffy, often fragrant flowers in pinks, whites, and reds. Irises are velvety and rich, textural and fragrant, and any color you can picture in your mind is probably available as an Iris! Irises are better suited to dryer beds, while Peonies prefer a bit of pampering or extra food, so be sure to lean into the right bloom for your situation.
Perennial Layout in Cut Flower Gardens
Perennials should be used as the through point in your planting schemes and act as a thread that stitches your whole look together. While it may seem like competition is a bad thing, we actually find that perennials do better in cut flower beds when planted closely and then divided as they grow larger, rather than planted to consider their final size from the start. Always consider the needs of your individual plants, allowing more drought-tolerant or low-water needs flowers to surround the edge of the bed where they may dry out faster, and putting hungrier, needier plants towards the center.
Tall perennials like Foxgloves should play off the height established by the shrubs and help connect one part of the bed to the next. Don’t feel like you have to place tall plants at the back of the bed—bringing a few airier tall perennials into the foreground helps create a more romantic, cottage-inspired look. Shorter perennials can be grown alone or in groups of three or even five, and should also act as a cohesive element, pulling a flower shape and color across the entirety of your bed as you dot them through your border.
5. Layer in Annuals for Creative Expression & Volume
Annuals kick up production of cut flowers to a new level, allowing you to grow many more stems and blooms than you could with Shrubs and Perennials alone. Though they only last a single year, they are the part of the process that keeps the bed fun, allows you to expand your color palette, and ultimately maximize your planting space.
Most of our favorite annuals for cut flower gardens grow quickly and flower nonstop with frequent deadheading or harvesting, giving you a tremendous amount of volume in the garden. However, we wouldn’t be good gardeners if we didn’t lean into the opportunity to experiment, and that’s where novelty, specialty plants or incredibly shorter-season flowers come into play.
The Best Long-Blooming Annuals for Cut Flower Gardens
The must-have annuals for a successful cut flower garden are Zinnias, Cosmos, Snapdragons, and Annual Scabiosa to quickly add volume and fill in gaps and vacancies. The plants you ultimately use should be up to you. Just because someone you know adores Zinnias doesn’t mean you have to grow them if you like the airier look of Cosmos instead.
For example, I’m a fiend for Snapdragons because of their shape and fragrance and the way they remind me of my childhood, so I’d never create a garden without them. But each year I like to try out something new and that’s how I’ve realized that Annual Scabiosa is a must-grow plant for me and that Zinnias just don’t thrive in my space, and that’s okay!
No matter which annuals you include, the secret to getting annuals to bloom for a long period of time is to harvest them and fertilize them regularly so that they continue to produce all Summer and don’t peter out as the season goes on.
Specialty Annuals for Cut Flower Gardens
As the interest in growing cut flowers continues on its meteoric rise (thank you, Instagram!) more and more specialty flowers are receiving the acclaim that they are absolutely due. Luckily, specialty doesn’t mean difficult to grow, but rather is an indication that these are rare, available for only a short period, or might need to be grown from seed.
Sweet Peas are one of the most brilliant annuals for cutting, offering fragrance, a range of color options, and a sweet, delicate form. Their vining habit is gorgeous when spun through existing shrubs or trellised against fences, and they produce best when fed heavily and cut frequently! Pansies are suddenly available in jaw-droppingly beautiful colors, and it might surprise people to know that they make excellent cut flowers. To achieve longer stems, grow them close to other plants or tuck them next to shrubs where their woody stems will act as scaffolding.
Breadseed Poppies and Heirloom Mums might be viewed by many as too short-seasoned to be must-grows, but they are perfect for high-impact, colorful, textural flowers. Breadseed Poppies can be sown freely in late March before our last frost, or grown from starts during their short window of availability. Heirloom Mums don’t flower until October or November, but should be planted in Spring so they have time to root in and establish before showtime.
We’ve partnered with local, dedicated growers to offer an incredibly range of specialty annuals which are typically available only in the month of April, so be sure to visit our stores now to shop these rare plants!
Annual Layout in Cut Flower Gardens
Annuals can be planted early in the Spring or throughout the Summer as gaps emerge. You can select annuals that reinforce your existing color scheme, or perhaps add a new, unexpected element to your planting bed! Depending on the height of the annual, you may grow them towards the perimeter of the planting bed for easy access, or nestled in amongst shrubs and perennials to achieve a longer stem length. And because they only last a season, annuals are incredible teachers. They offer you a chance to be experimental with your space and try a different approach each year.
6. Co-Plant Bulbs to Extend the Bloom Period
Bulbs are a low-cost, high-impact way to add more flowers to your cut flower garden, and beyond that, they are just really cool, gorgeous plants! Spring bulbs will rise up and put on a show as perennials are just emerging, Summer-flowering bulbs will help create a fuller display in the warm months, and Dahlias will provide an abundance of late-Summer stems to work with.
Spring Flowering Bulbs
Narcissus and Daffodils help pave the way for the whole cut garden each season. They bloom early and heavily and set the tone and color palette, whether subdued or intense. Following your Narcissus with Tulips that further play out your chosen colors is the perfect way to get loads of flowers out of your dedicated growing space. Finally, Alliums come into play alongside many early Perennials, and their firework of purples or white are brilliant for using fresh or as dried seedheads. Plant Tulips and Narcissus in the Fall right next to your perennials—perennials will take some time to wake up in the Spring so early bulbs help cover the space and protect tender new perennial leaves from the elements.
Summer Flowering Bulbs
Lilies and Gladiolus may be staples of Granny Gardens, but we think they are also perfectly at home in the chicest, most modern displays. Lilies bring fragrance and drama, while Gladiolus help stick the landing of your color palette with tall, narrow spikes of color. Happily, these Summer bulbs are incredibly easy to grow! Plant Lilies and Gladiolus around Shrubs to act as a tall exclamation. The shrubs will provide natural stakes to help keep taller flowers from toppling over, and their roots work together to anchor bulbs in place.
Bulbs for Late Summer Color
Dahlias come in a staggering number of shapes and forms and can work either as strong, hero-like statement plants, or as supporting characters in the story you’re telling with your floral display. Spikey or soft, open or full, the range of colors and styles to work with is a wide open paradise just waiting to be explored. Leave dedicated space for Dahlias, which like room to grow and will reward you with hundreds of flowers, especially as the season ends. While some may require early-season staking, with the right placement existing perennials and shrubs can help stabilize these tall, towering plants.
Shopping for Cut Flower Garden Plants
Local garden centers like Dennis’ 7 Dees have a phenomenal range of plants that can be grown for cut flowers. Our plants are grown locally by small, independent growers, making them perfectly tailored to the life in Pacific Northwest.
Shrubs and perennials can be purchased as large or small plants, so gardeners searching for instant gratification can start with larger specimens, and others on a budget who don’t mind waiting can also find fantastic options for starting their cut flower garden. Many fantastic flowers for cut gardens can be grown from seed, grown as bulbs, or snagged early in the season as 4-inch plants, so be sure to visit garden centers in Spring to make the most of your display!