Caroline Plouff - Alternatively, dedicate a part of the garden to growing cut flowers. ... Windy sites are best avoided as robust staking will be essential for the taller flowers.

1. Pruning and Trimming of Beautiful Flowers in
Orchid

2. Corn cockle
Common along roadsides and grain fields of the
Mediterranean, this wildflower also makes a great cut
flower. Delicate blooms are 2–3 in. wide and form on
particularly long stems. ‘Ocean Pearls’ (pictured) has white
flowers with black flecks, while ‘Milas’ has deep purplish
pink blossoms lined and spotted in deep purple.

3. Peruvian lily
Alstroemeria hybrids range in height from 1-4 feet tall with numerous leafy
flowering stems topped by yellow, orange, or orange-red flowers liberally
sprinkled with dark flecks. Many hybrids were once grown only by
commercial florists, who jealously guarded their plants from the home
gardening public. Cut flowers can last for up to 3 weeks in the vase.

4. Amaranth
Ornamental amaranth are grown for their brightly colored
foliage and unusual drooping flower tassels that can grow as
long as 4 feet. The tassels can be cut and tucked into the sides
of bouquets, allowed to spill over the vase. ‘Green Tails’
(pictured) is less common than the burgundy-colored hybrids.

5. Cosmos
Showy summer and fall blooming plants grow with an open
and branching in habit and produce daisy-like flowers in many
colors and forms. Heights vary from 2 ½ to 6 ft, with taller
varieties like ‘Sensation’ (pictured) providing longer stems for
cut flowers.

6. Coneflower
These tough, colorful perennials form long-lasting flowers on straight
stems above clumps of bristly foliage. Coneflowers generally bloom from
spring until the first frost, providing months of flowers to cut for bouquets.
For flowers past their prime, the petals can be picked off and the spikey
orange centers used as accents in bouquets.

7. Dahlia
Dahlias, with their strong stems, long-lasting blooms, and substantial, attractive
foliage, make striking cut flowers. Through centuries of hybridizing and selection,
dahlias have become tremendously diversified, available in numerous flower
types and flower sizes (from 2 to 12 inches across) and all colors but true blue

8. Feverfew
These easy-care perennials form mounding plants covered in hundreds of tiny, daisy-like flowers with both single and
double-petal varieties. Cut flowers are useful as delicate fillers in bouquets.

9. Minoan lace
This easy-care Mediterranean wildflower has fern-like foliage and lace cap flower heads from 3-5 inches across.
Reminiscent of cottage garden favorite Queen Anne’s Lace, this less weedy alternative has the same old-fashioned
look in bouquets.

10. Flowering tobacco
All Nicotiana are easy to grow in home gardens and many reseed readily. Nicotiana langsdorfii is a particularly
stunning species with drooping sprays of bell-shaped bright green flowers that blend well with other cut flowers in
bouquets.

11. Zinnia
These hot-weather favorites produce flowers from early summer to fall. Plants are subject to mildew in foggy
climates and when watered from overhead. Zinnias in the ‘Benary’s’ series (e.g. pictured here, ‘Benary’s Salmon
Rose’) are bred to be mildew resistant and all make exceptional cut flowers long upright stems growing 3’ tall and
sturdy blooms as large as 6” across.

12. Pincushion flower
Resembling a pincushion full of needles, each Scabiosa flower has stamens that protrude well beyond the curved
flower heads. Bloom begins in midsummer and continue until frost. In the Sunset Test Garden, we found Scabiosa
atropurpura ‘Snow Maiden’ (pictured) to be extremely productive, pumping out hundreds of pure white pom-pom
blooms atop stems nearly 18” tall.

13. Garden-to-vase bouquet
Floral designer Christina Stembel of Farmgirl Flowers picked these blooms from the Sunset Test Garden to arrange for
a garden-inspired bouquet. Added to the mix are champagne-colored dahlias ‘Café au Lait’, spiky centers of spent
echinacea blossoms, and Scabiosa ‘Alba’. Amaranth ‘Green Tails’ spills over the sides while unripe blackberries and
sprigs of Thai basil add edible and aromatic touches.

14. Hot-colored centerpiece
Zinnias unify this combination, graduating in color from white to lime to coral. They're interspersed with unripe figs
and blackberries, white dahlia ‘Tiny Treasure’, sprigs of mint, Peruvian lily, echinacea in various stages of bloom, and
holly ferns for a touch of green.

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