Shrubs for Cutting Gardens

Is there any greater pleasure for a gardener than harvesting and enjoying homegrown bounty, whether it’s a sun-warmed tomato or an armful of tulips?

Just as garden-to-table meals satisfy veggie growers, garden-to-vase floral arrangements delight gardeners. They come away with the satisfaction of harvesting, arranging, and relishing the colors, textures, and fragrance of flowers grown at home.

Creating a cutting garden may seem daunting, but there’s a simple solution for growing beautiful blooms without planting hundreds of seeds or dozens of bulbs: add flowering shrubs to your landscape.

Benefits of Growing Shrubs for a Cutting Garden

A beautiful addition to gardens, flowering shrubs offer gorgeous blooms and foliage for floral arrangements without leaving holes in the landscape when harvesting the flowers. Professional growers refer to shrubs affectionately as “woodies,” or woody ornamentals. Many parts of woodies, including shrubs and trees, can be used in floral arrangements: flowering branches, twigs, cones, berries, and even colorful foliage all add interest to your own unique, personal bouquets.

Unlike cutting gardens that rely on labor- and time-intensive seed sowing and bulb planting each year, adding flowering shrubs to the garden provides ongoing harvests for years with little effort. While the initial investment may be greater than growing flowers from seed, over time your budget (and back) will thank you, as the shrubs continue to flourish and produce beautiful blooms each year.

Long-lasting ornamental shrubs require little maintenance, although many woodies benefit from pruning right after flowering. By cutting flowers for use in bouquets, you’re a step ahead of the maintenance schedule!

Which flowering shrub is best for your cutting garden?

With literally thousands of flowering shrubs available, how do you know which is best for your cutting garden? Part of the decision is personal preference: select shrubs with flowers that you love. Perhaps lilacs remind you of the bouquets your mom placed on the kitchen table, snipped from the large backyard hedges. Or maybe you adore the timeless elegance of red roses. Choose shrubs that speak to you—but make sure they’ll grow in your area. Know your USDA hardiness zone, and check the shrubs’ requirements before you buy. (Your local nurseries and garden centers should carry shrubs that work well in your area, but don’t be afraid to ask! If ordering online, most retailers list USDA hardiness zones for each plant.)

When creating your cutting garden, you’ll want beautiful flowers, of course, but also consider foliage and other “fillers” for your flower arrangements. Add elements that provide year-round options for your vases, like forsythia branches for forcing or evergreen foliage for winter arrangements. The options are endless!

To get you started on your garden-to-vase journey, we’ve featured some favorite shrubs which are easy to incorporate into your landscape for a long season of cut flowers.

The Star of Floral Arrangements: Roses

Is there any flower more beloved for bouquets than roses? It’s the quintessential choice for brides and best friends, celebrations and apologies. Classic and elegant, roses look lovely on their own or paired with complementary blooms and foliage. If you love rose bouquets,  you’ll love the satisfaction of growing your own roses.

But where do you begin? The options can be overwhelming. From old-world heirloom roses to beautifully formed hybrid tea roses to grandiflora and floribunda roses, you’ll find 300 species and tens of thousands of cultivars when searching for roses. So many choices!

Roses require full sun for best health and most prolific blooms. Start by selecting your favorite color palette and form. Do you love soft, romantic colors, like cream and pink, or do you prefer vivid varieties in bright orange and yellow? Do you adore cabbage roses, with heavy heads filled with hundreds of overlapping petals, or do you like the clean, elegant form of tea roses? Once you narrow down your aesthetic preferences, consider your time commitment. Some roses require higher maintenance than others, but all roses will need a bit of attention to look their best and produce perfect blooms for cutting. Check your plants frequently for pests, especially aphids and Japanese beetles, which can quickly decimate your pretty blooms.

Also Starring in Landscapes and Vases: Hydrangeas

“When you think of shrubs for cut flowers, you immediately think hydrangeas,” says Natalie Carmolli, Advertising, and PR Specialist for Spring Meadows Nursery, Inc./Proven Winners® ColorChoice® Shrubs. “‘Limelight’, Incrediball, Let’s Dance Rhythmic Blue…all are gorgeous in a vase.”

While roses top the list of popular cut flowers, hydrangeas follow close behind. From big, blue mopheads to elegant, tapering oakleaf, hydrangeas look stunning not only in the landscape but also in the vase. Best of all, these beauties require minimal care. With “hydra” in the name, obviously, consistent watering is important to keep hydrangeas looking their best. But the wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes means that you’ll find cultivars suited to your preferences.

Remember, too, that soil affects the flower color of some hydrangeas, like Hydrangea macrophylla. While you might purchase a hydrangea that’s pink in the nursery pot, the blooms may ultimately turn blue if your soil is acidic, with a pH of 5.5 or lower.

With so many hydrangeas to choose from, where do you begin?

The four most popular types of hydrangeas for cut flowers can be found in this “Year of the Hydrangea” article.

“Another classic cut flower, the panicle hydrangea, is amped up to a new level with Berry White® Hydrangea,” says McEnaney. “This beauty has long, sturdy stems so you can add some drama to cut arrangements by placing the blooms in the center without worrying about stem length. And even more impressive is the fall color; as nighttime temperatures cool down, the flower head turns from white to deep red and merlot.”

With beautiful foliage and fabulous, continuous blooms, hydrangeas make an ideal addition to the landscape—and your vase. Don’t worry if you garden in a small space. New compact cultivars for small-space gardens mean that you don’t need a large landscape to enjoy the beautiful blooms in floral arrangements.

Up-and-Coming Stars for a Cut Flower Garden

While roses and hydrangeas steal the show in floral arrangements, many other flowering shrubs contribute beautiful blooms, fabulous foliage, or interesting texture to use in bouquets. “There are shrubs that play an equally important role, colorful filler!” says Carmolli. “Think Ginger Wine or Summer Wine Black Physocarpus, Kodiak Diervilla, or long, slender stems of Black Cat Salix.”

When researching which shrubs to add to your cut flower garden, consider the following: