March 19 Column: Cut-Flower Garden

I can’t believe it’s time for my 5th column and video already! Today’s topic is about growing a cut-flower garden. This is something that is great fun because flowers are easy to grow and they will provide you with so much beauty both in your garden and indoors. Here’s a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Flowers bring beauty and pollinators to the garden.

As I mentioned in my column, my “official” cut-flower garden will be comprised of annuals. Why? I’m dedicating a raised bed in the middle of my vegetable garden for it, and if I grow annuals (plants that grow, bloom, set seed and die in a single growing season), I can try different ones every year.

While it’s not time to plant annuals yet, since they aren’t cold-tolerant, it’s certainly time to do a little research to decide which ones you want to grow, figure out where you’re going to plant them, and either get the seeds growing indoors right away… or decide where you’re going to purchase some locally.

The best time to plant annuals is after all danger of frost is past. Here in the Inland Northwest, that’s typically after mid-May. Of course, you have to keep an eye on the weather forecasts, too, just to be safe!

Indoors, I’ve started zinnias, celosia, Gloriosa daisies and cosmos. I will also plant ‘Peach Passion’ and ‘Van Gogh’ sunflower seeds right into the garden bed in mid-May since they seem to do better that way, rather than planting them indoors first.

Here is a link to this week’s “Everyone Can Grow A Garden!” video. In it, I’ll show you where my cut-flower garden is going to be planted and a slideshow of some of the amazing annuals that I mentioned in my column so you can get a little inspiration!

And before I forget: if you live in the Spokane area and are looking for seeds, Northwest Seed & Pet has a huge selection of flower, vegetable and herb seeds. I don’t receive anything from them for mentioning this, but they carry many different brands of seeds, so check with them first to see if they have the ones you’re looking at online.