What’s the first thing you notice when you walk into a room? For me, it’s flowers. If there’s a bouquet or a flowering plant in there, that’s where my eyes are drawn. There’s something so magical about flowers. No matter what the season, you can never have enough! And if you can gather the bouquets from your garden even better.

But how can you keep flowers coming all year long? Is it even possible to grow enough flowers in your garden to create beautiful bouquets? Yes! You can create a year’s worth of bouquets from your garden. All it takes is planning to grow your beautiful blooms. And now is the best time to do your planning.

Planning out your flower garden is a great way to make sure you have the blooms you need to create your bouquets. There are a variety of ways to get flowers from early spring all the way into early winter. And depending on where you live, it’s even possible to get a few blooms during the winter months.

3 Steps to Grow Flowers for Year-Round Blooms…

In order to have enough flowers to make bouquets all year long, you must consider what types of plants you need to provide your blooms. Flowers are abundant in summer, but the spring and fall take more planning to get consistent blooms.

Follow these 3 steps to have a variety of blooms for every season.

Step #1- Assess What You Have

The first thing to consider is what you currently have available. Knowing what is already growing in your garden throughout the year can help you plan for the times when there are limited flowers.

Make a seasonal list of all the plants you have available to provide flowers. Start with early spring. Then move on to late spring, summer, fall and finally winter. You can do this from memory, pictures, or by taking a walk around your garden.

Here’s an example… the first thing to bloom in your garden might be forsythia and quince. At the same time, crocus starts popping up. Next, the daffodils will open, followed by magnolia blooms. Then comes the tulips, lilacs, and dogwood blooms.

Track your flowering plants as best you can remember for the whole year. Then go back and put dates on your chart once the plants are actually blooming. Don’t forget to add any plants you missed. This will give you a clear picture of what and when you have flowers available for harvest.

Step #2- Plan For New Perennials and Shrubs

Once you have an overview of what is currently growing, look for any holes in the time frame. Maybe you need some additional early spring bloomers. Or you might need some late season flowers in your garden. Now is the time to consider what you can add to fill in any holes.

To have the greatest variety of seasonal blooms, it’s a good idea to choose plants from a variety of sources. Consider adding plants from the following categories. The beauty of these plants is that once you plant them, they’ll provide blooms for many years to come.

Bulbs, Tubers, Corms, Rhizomes

Incorporating bulbs such as crocus, hyacinths, tulips, and more into your garden beds will provide early spring flowers. These are the first blooms to appear as the cold temperatures diminish. You can place patches here and there in your garden or add in large drifts of these beautiful flowers.

There are so many varieties of spring blooming bulbs to choose from. Take some time this spring to explore options and get your bulbs ordered for next year. Flower companies will send out the bulbs in time for you to plant this fall.

Besides spring bloomers, there are a number of summer bulbs and tubers available. Many can remain in the ground even during the cold winter months while others, such as gladiolas and dahlias, need to be protected from freezing temperatures.

Flowering Shrubs and Trees

When spring bulbs are on display, the buds on flowering shrubs and trees begin to swell. Eventually, they open to continue the spring show. There are many ornamental shrubs, trees, and even fruit trees that can supply branches for cutting.

Continuing through the season, you’ll find many shrubs and trees that can provide blooming stems, seed pods and berries that add attractiveness to a bouquet.

Perennials

Adding perennials into your garden beds will give you abundant blooms year-after-year. There are so many to choose from. They vary in size, bloom type, colors, and bloom time. Many perennials only bloom for a short 2 to 3 week window. However, there are some perennials that have a longer bloom time.

By choosing a variety of plants with different bloom times, you can get a continuous display of flowers. For example, if you love peonies, you can find cultivars that bloom very early in spring, mid-season and late spring. This way you can prolong your enjoyment of peonies not only in your garden but in lovely bouquets as well.

To get the longest floral show from your perennials, choose plants for every season. That way, you’ll have a continuous supply of flowers.

Evergreen Shrubs and Trees

Evergreens can provide interest and texture not only in your garden, but in your bouquets. While you can use them all year long, winter is the season where they shine in a bouquet. Add in a variety of evergreens into your landscape to provide different shades of green, unusual textures, and cones.

Step #3- Plan Your Annual Blooms

Your flowering shrubs, trees, bulbs, and perennials form the flower framework for your garden. In this last step, you’ll add in blooms from annual flowers. There are two categories of annuals: hardy annuals and tender annuals. The hardy annuals like it cool and bloom best in the early spring to early summer. Tender or warm-season annuals prefer the hotter temperatures of summer.

Both groups must be planted each year in your garden. These flowers supply the bulk of blooms for most of the growing season.

Hardy Annuals

As your bulbs and spring shrubs begin to fade, the hardy annuals start to bloom. Hardy annuals love the cooler temperatures of early spring. As the temperatures warm up, their show will slow down. However, they can often keep blooming until late June, when the warm season annuals take over.

If you plant hardy annuals in the early fall, many can winter over. Or you can plant them into your garden in the very early spring even before your last frost date. Another option is to allow some of these plants to go to seed and drop in the fall. This simple process will help you regrow these flowers in your garden year after year.

Annuals

Just like hardy annuals, annuals must be planted each year in the garden. They grow, bloom, set seed, and die all in the same growing season. We often refer to them as warm season or tender annuals because they can’t tolerate any cold weather. Just like hardy annuals, warm season annuals also can go to seed and drop in the garden to grow next year.

After you’ve created your list of plants you have or want to grow, create a visual chart that maps out the bloom times of your plants. This can help you decide if you’re going to have enough flowers during each season.

What You Need to Create Beautiful Bouquets…

Before we look at actual bouquets, there are some basic supplies you need to have on hand. Gather these supplies and keep them handy to make bouquet creation quick and easy.

Keep in mind, your bouquets don’t need to be fancy. So often today the bouquets we see sold and displayed are complicated arrangements that most of us would find difficult to recreate. Instead, create simple bouquets from these plant selections anyone can grow in their backyards and cutting gardens.

Flowers and Greenery

The most important part of creating a year’s worth of bouquets is to grow flowers and greenery you can cut and bring indoors. That’s where a cutting garden comes in. Cutting gardens provide the opportunity to grow flowers specifically for cutting.

Most gardeners grow these flowers in out of the way places. However, they don’t have to be tucked away. My cutting garden is just outside my back door. I grow flowers in decorative beds and borders, as well as raised beds. They’re mixed in with my herb and kitchen gardens.

I cut from the flowers regularly, but that doesn’t mean my garden beds aren’t lovely to look at. It’s easy to cut flowers in a way that you still have beauty to enjoy every time you walk by. The birds and pollinators will thank you for growing an abundance of flowers.

Vases

The vases you display your flowers in can be as simple as a mason jar or as fancy as a delicate vase. Gather a few options together and keep them handy. My two favorite choices are vintage blue mason jars and white pottery pitchers. While these are my go-to choices, there are so many other options available. Here are some examples of containers I’ve used over the years.

Container Ideas:

• Glass Soda Bottles
• Decorated Tin Cans
• Soup Tureens
• Drinking Glasses
• Thermoses
• Creamers
• Vintage Planters
• Crocks
• Salt/Pepper Shakers
• Syrup Dispensers
• Baskets (put flowers in jars)
• Handbags (put flowers in jars)
• Tea Pots and Cups
• Silver Bowls
• Watering Cans

If the container can hold water, then you can put flowers in it.

READ… DIY Flower Vases for Your Bouquets

Other Supplies

You don’t need to buy a lot of special equipment in order to create lovely bouquets.

Having a sharp pair of clippers for outdoors and heavy duty snips or scissors for trimming is important. Carry a bucket of water with you when cutting to put your stems in.

I would also recommend some type of flower preservative to put in your vases as you create your bouquets. This can help prolong the life of your flowers.

What to Grow in Your Garden

If you want to create bouquets all year long, then you’ll need to plant a variety of flowers, herbs, shrubs and greenery to use. Here’s the rundown on basic plants to grow in your garden for bouquet materials. As you choose the plants you want to grow, consider when they will bloom. If you only choose summer annuals, then you won’t have much to harvest in the spring or autumn.

Perennials

As you plan your garden for the year, think about what perennials you could grow. Although there are many perennials available, choose those that have abundant flowers and do well in your climate. Also, be aware that it might take 2 to 3 years before these plants produce enough flowers to cut.

• Peonies
• Phlox
• Daylily
• Lilies
• Asters
• Coreopsis
• Yarrow
• Mums
• Sedums
• Echinacia
• Shasta Daisy
• Oriental Poppies
• Salvia
• Veronica
• Bleeding Heart
• Rudbeckia

Annuals

Annuals are the mainstay of the cutting garden. They’ll supply many of the flowers you can use for creating your bouquets. Planting from seeds is the least expensive way to get a large amount of annuals, but you could also purchase annuals from the garden center.

Here are some favorite annuals to grow for bouquet making.

• Cosmos
• Zinnia
• Calendula
• Sunflowers
• Poppies
• Nicotinia
• Strawflowers
• Marigolds
• Nastursium
• Gomphrena
• Celosia

Hardy Annuals

Hardy annuals also need to be planted yearly. However, they have the advantage of blooming earlier in the spring. Some hardy annuals are biennials which bloom in the second year of growth. Annuals need the warmth of summer, while hardy annuals do best in the cooler spring months.

• Foxglove
• Snapdragon
• Sweet William
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Larkspur
• Bachelor Buttons
• Bee Balm
• Ammi
• Dara
• Orlaya
• Feverfew
• Statice
• Stock
• Sweet Pea

Herbs

Herbs are not only useful in your kitchen. They can also supply abundant flowers and greenery for your bouquets.

• Chamomile
• Sage
• Oregano
• Mint
• Basil (many varieties)
• Rosemary
• Fennel
• Dill
• Lavender

Flowering Shrubs and Trees

Many shrubs can supply flowers for a short time but they also provide greenery, which can add support to your bouquets.

• Snowball Viburnum
• Lilacs
• Roses
• Forsythia
• Ninebark
• Hydrangeas
• Magnolia
• Dogwood
• Red and Yellow Twig Dogwood
• Quince

Bulbs and Tubers

Spring blooming bulbs are most well known, but there are summer and fall bloomers that can supply flowers as well.

• Daffodils
• Crocus
• Hyacinths
• Grape Hyacinths
• Tulips
• Ranunculus
• Anemones
• Gladiolas
• Dahlias
• Lilies
• Iris
• Alliums

Greenery

Don’t forget that many plants can supply greenery and add texture to your bouquets. This could include the stems of perennials, annuals, shrubs, vines, and trees growing in your yard and garden. Here are some of my favorites:

• Ivy
• Euonymus
• Forsythia
• Eucalyptus
• Bells of Ireland
• Bupleurum
• Dusty Miller
• Mountain Mint
• Lamb’s Ear
• Boxwood

Getting Started…

Below are a few helpful tips to get started creating bouquets all year long.

1. Use what you have available in season. While most of your flowers will be abundant in the spring and summer months, you can often find sources for bouquets all year long.
2. Vary your bouquets. Some can be just single blooms, such as a vase of lilacs or roses. Other bouquets might be a mix of 3 to 5 different materials.
3. Pick your flowers in the early morning or in the cool of the evening for the best results. This is when the flowers are hydrated. In the heat of the day, the flowers tend to be dehydrated and they won’t last as long in the vase.
4. For the longest vase life, pick flowers when they’re one-third to one-half open rather than fully open. Most will continue to open after you’ve picked them. There are a few exceptions to this. For example, dahlias and yarrow should be fully opened when picking, since they will not continue to open afterwards.
5. Put your just picked flowers in a container of water and allow them to sit for several hours before you create your display. This conditioning encourages them to re-hydrate. You can let them re-hydrate even longer if you like.
6. Change your vase water frequently… every other day or so to prevent bacteria from growing and ruining your bouquets.
7. When planning your flowers, consider the colors of the blooms and flower shapes. Your color palette should complement each other. Bright orange won’t be as appealing in a pink and lavender spring bouquet, but it works well in an autumn bouquet.

A Year’s Worth of Bouquets…

Below, you will find a variety of bouquets that I’ve created over the years. This is to give you some inspiration for what you could grow in your garden. I’ve listed the bouquets by season based on what’s growing in my zone 7a. You might find the same flowers growing earlier or later in your garden.

Early Spring

We are so ready for flowers by the time spring rolls around. During February and early March, we’re looking for the first signs of spring. Bulbs such as the daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths push up through the ground. These bright and cheery flowers help us make it through the last of the cold months. You can also force spring branches such as forsythia and magnolia even earlier.

Daffodil Bouquet

Lilac Bouquet

Snowball Bouquet

Ranunculus Bouquet

Peony Bouquet

Late Spring/Early Summer

Sweet William Mixed Bouquet

Springtime Trio (Sweet Peas, Snapdragons, and Lantana)

Summer

Summer provides so many options for flowers. Whether you grow flowers in beds, borders or a cut flower garden, this is when you’ll have the greatest number of floral options to choose from.

Hydrangea Bouquet

Herb Bouquet

Summer Display

Sunflower Bouquet

Stargazer Lily Bouquet

Cosmos Bouquet

Mixed Flowers and Herb Bouquet

Late Summer/Early Fall

Zinnia Mini Bouquet

Rudbeckia with Ammi and Shasta Daisies

Dahlia Bouquet #1

Dahlia Bouquet #2

Mixed Bouquet

Fall

While many of the summer flowers start to slow down, some flowers are in their prime. Dahlias are a good example of this. Chrysanthemums are another good choice for fall.

Dahlia Singles

Mixed Fall Bouquet

Viburnum Leaf and Berries

Winter

While there are few flower choices to pick from in winter, we can use a variety of greens from the garden to craft an indoor bouquet. You can also use indoor bulbs such as amaryllis for a bouquet. When used as a cut flower, amaryllis can last about a week in a vase. Other winter choices include hellebores, snowdrops, and winter heather.

Amaryllis Bouquet

I hope that this post has been an inspiration to you for what you can grow in your garden this coming year. Flowers bring so much joy to our lives. I want to encourage you to think about how you can create a garden that is flourishing and full of beautiful blooms. Whether you’re growing them to enjoy in the garden or bringing them indoors, you can never have enough flowers.

It’s possible to create a year’s worth of bouquets from your garden when you plan for the flowers you will grow.