Top flowers for summer
These easy-to-care-for delights will take centre stage in arrangements
You’ve seen the photos on Instagram accounts, such as @farmgirlsk and @floretflower — armloads of fresh flowers culled from a field, ready for vases and bouquets. Even if you have a small garden, it’s possible to create your own flourishing patch of blooms, but on a smaller, more manageable scale.
Imagine harvesting flowers while you pick fresh tomatoes for dinner. The former is destined for the vase, the latter for a salad. And while you don’t have to include edibles in your cutflower garden, if you do happen to grow vegetables, the pollinators the flowers attract will also make pit stops at the veggies, pollinating those tomato blossoms or squash blooms. It’s win-win.
Here are a few easy-to-carefor flowers that will have star power in summer arrangements — and the garden. Be sure to follow the information on the seed packet or plant tag to ensure you plant your blooms according to the conditions they will thrive in. Cosmos Cosmos are easy to grow from seed and very prolific bloomers once they get going. Toss a few seeds into an existing perennial garden (after all threat of frost has passed) or plant them around your raised beds to attract pollinators. Don’t plant cosmos in front of short plants — some varieties can reach two to five feet tall. You can also start seeds indoors, usually about four to six weeks before your frost-free date. They sprout fast, so you may need to transplant seedlings to bigger pots before they’re ready to go outside. Deadhead faded flowers to encourage new blooms. Flower variety faves: Sonata Mix is a common variety that will give a mix of white, pink and burgundy blooms. If you’re looking for frilly, Cosmos bipinnatus Cupcakes Mixed look like cupcake liners with their frilly, corrugated-looking blooms. And Cosmos bipinnatus Apricot have a gorgeous peachypink hue.
Zinnias Zinnias can add a rainbow of colour to the garden. And hummingbirds, as well as bees and butterflies, love them. There is a plethora of varieties, but be sure to read the seed packet to en- sure the type you choose is not destined for a container. They love the heat of full sun and well-drained soil. You can start seeds indoors about four or five weeks before your area’s frostfree date. Zinnias are a little fussy about being transplanted, so plant seeds in peat pots that can go directly into the garden. Flower variety faves: Pastel Dreams grow to about three or four feet tall and produce a variety of colours from orange and yellow to pink. Lilliput Mix will give you pompom-shaped blooms in bright, solid colours.
Dahlias Dahlias are those stunners that seem to get a lot of attention on social media at the end of the summer. They come in all shapes and sizes and colours. Dahlias are grown from tubers, which you can plant after all threat of frost has passed, with the tips pointing down, in soil that’s been well-amended with compost. Plants can get big and blooms weighty, so be sure to stake plants accordingly. Flower variety faves: These stunners also have fun names, such as the peach-, pink- and yellow-hued Kogana Fubuki Semi Dinner Plate Dahlia and the tentacled Hollyhill Spider Woman Cactus Dahlia. Sunflowers You might associate sunflowers as the flower that produces seeds for the birds, but there are some lovely cutting cultivars that look great as focal points in vases. They’ll last up to two weeks if you cut them right as they start to open.
Many varieties drop pollen, which can stain your table, so look for pollenless types if you are growing for bouquets. (Just be sure to add other flowers to your garden for pollinators.) Seeds can be sown right in the ground, as soon as the soil warms up. Flower variety faves: White Nite is a pale-yellow beauty with a dark centre, while Claret Hybrid offers a contrasting, deep mahogany hue. Coreopsis If you want a dependable perennial flower that will come up every year — and spread, if you let it — plant coreopsis.
This is the Year of the Coreopsis, according to the National Garden Bureau, which is a non-profit organization in the U.S. with a mission to inspire and educate the public about plants.
Native to North America, this is a hardy plant that is drought tolerant and loves full sun.
You’ll be able to find well-established plants at your local garden centre. Flower variety faves: A new variety that you may find at the garden centre this year is Coreopsis hybrid UpTick Gold & Bronze.