top 5 seasonal perennials for your cut flower garden

top 5 seasonal perennials for your cut flower garden

A fresh bouquet from your own garden adds a sense of beauty and peace to any room or space.  With a little planning, you can include in your garden some spring, summer, and fall blooming perennials that you can enjoy from spring through fall both inside and out.

 

Here are our top 5 picks for each of your seasonal perennial cutting gardens: 

Spring Blooming:

            Iris

            Peonies

            Baptisia

            Daisies

            Anemone

Summer Blooming:

            Cone Flowers

            Bee Balm

            Garden Phlox

            Lavender

            Blazing Star

Fall Blooming:

            Asters

            Sedums

            Globe Thistle

            Black Eyed Susan

            Butterfly Weed

Good fillers any season:

            Hosta leaves

            Ferns

(An FYI – 2 perennials that are beautiful in the garden but do not last in fresh bouquets are daylilies and hibiscus – leave them in the garden to enjoy.)

Read more about cut flower gardens:

Things to Consider When Planning Your Perennial Garden

6 Simple Tips to Make Your Own Fresh Flower Arrangements

5 Must Have Prairie Plants

Weigelas take center stage

Just when the spring bloomers are starting to wane, another beautiful plant takes center stage – Weigelas.

These early summer bloomers have beautiful pink or red tubular blooms.  Many new varieties have recently come on the market. These new varieties come in multiple sizes and have various leaf colors including green, burgundy, and yellow.  Weigelas grow best in full or part sun.

Here are a few varieties that we carry here at Natural Plus:

• Dark Horse- grows 3’, pink blooms, burgundy/bronze leaves

• Golden Jackpot – grows 4-6’, pink blooms, yellow leaves

• Minuet- grows 2-3’, pink blooms , green leaves with purple casts

• Pink Sonic Bloom – grows 4-5’, green leaves, bright pink blooms

• Rainbow Sensation- grows 4’, pink blooms, variegated leaves

• Red Prince – grow 5-6’, bright red blooms, deep green leaves

• Rumba – grow 3’, dark red flowers with a yellow throat, bronze-purple tinged leaves 

• Spilled Wine – 1-2’ tall, 2-3’ wide, magenta blooms, red wavy leaves

• Wine and Roses -  grow 4-5’, burgundy/bronze leaves, rosy pink blooms

Things You Might Not Know About the Renaissance Spirea

Things you might not know about the Renaissance Spirea

Blooming now – Renaissance Spirea (commonly known as Bridal Wreath Spirea)

These graceful spireas got their common name as they were the flower of choice for June brides a couple generations ago. At that time, other flower choices were limited or none - so this graceful plant became the bouquet of those June brides.

 Although not often a choice for brides now, we still enjoy these plants and their graceful cascading white blooms. They look especially beautiful – making a historical statement -when planted around Victorian type homes.

Photo from monrovia.com

Renaissance spireas typically grow 6-7’ tall and wide. Allow plenty of space for them to spread out. They prefer full or part sun but will even grow in nearly full shade.

If you do not have enough space for one of these beauties, smaller varieties have been developed and are now available. These newer “cousins” include:

·      Snowmound – a similar plant and bloom but grows 3-5’ tall

·      Birchleaf Spirea- these have a similar bloom, but leaves are blue green and resemble eucalyptus leaves – grow 2-3’

Our Top 3 Flowering Crab Tree Picks

One of the rewards for living through long Iowa winters is the delight of spring blooming flowering crab trees.

If you have memories of flowering crab trees that dropped very large apples, or that lost all their leaves by the end of June – No Worries!  New varieties of crabs no longer have these characteristics. They have either no berries(apples) or very small berries that birds will clean. The old varieties that lost their leaves by July were susceptible to a disease called cedar apple rust fungus. New varieties are resistant to this as well.

Our Top 3 Flowering Crab Tree Picks

Spring Snow -  Deep green foliage with white blooms, fruitless, Grow 12-15’ 

Prairie Fire – Green foliage with the deepest red/pink blooms currently available, small berries that birds will clean, grow 20-25’ 

Camelot – A wonderful dwarf variety. Buds deep pink with blooms pink fading to white along the entire stems of the tree, small berries that birds will clean, grow 10-12’

More on Crab Trees HERE.