How to grow your decoration
A detour through the flower garden
As the daughter of a gardener, I’ve always thought plants and flowers essential to humane living. The home of my childhood was filled with green, growing things, and one of my summer chores was to pick flowers from my mother’s gardens and arrange them for indoors. Along with vegetables who brave the hot, western sun, in my parents’ yard grow zinnias, cosmos, black-eyed-susan, daylilies, goldenrod, roses, lavender. Arrangements in their house are bright with the colors of the sunsets that come most evenings: coral, fuscia, gold.
I wrote once about the charisma of vintage furniture, and I think similarly about fresh flower arrangements. They are sacrificial, styling heroes. It is their mortality that blesses a room, the way they follow light with their heads, inhale and exhale the air, unloose pollen, wilt, and finally give themselves to the compost heap.
However, the recurring investment of buying fresh flowers might not be in everyone’s budget. It wasn’t in mine. So, upon my husband’s and my first spring in our first house, without much thought, I began planning a cutting garden. I wanted to be able to grow my own decoration.
The garden has waxed and waned over these few years, some summers boasting five foot tall zinnias with stalks like tree trunks, and other years, like this one, turning out less impressively. Still, as those of you who are gardeners understand, I am back at it again this fall, ready to try again, planning for spring, hoping in a sunnier spot in the yard and in the mercy of forethought.
The following are a few ideas I’ve collected during my amateur forays in gardening, directed more toward growing attractive bouquets for indoors rather than garden design. Perhaps they will be helpful for creating your own arrangements rather than buying pre-made ones or for planting a garden in the future. I hope they at least draw back the mystique of cultivating your own decor.*
Plan your arrangements.
After growing my first cutting garden, I realized I needed to plan more around the arrangements I wanted in my house. I decided to envision the combinations of foliage and bloom that I appreciate—full greenery and layered creams and whites. My favorite color palette, the one I’ve used throughout my home—green, cream, gold, terracotta, and blue—returned to me. Similarly, the places for which I wanted arrangements began to clarify the shapes and forms of flowers that would work best in my house. For example, many of my surfaces are tables we eat around, so I focus on flowers that lend themselves toward low, symmetrical arrangements (round blooms like dahlias) and less on long-stem statement flowers like Irises and lilies, which work well on mantles, pianos, and console tables.
I’ve tried to identify a formula to start out with (for those inclined toward formulae): large bloom + small bloom or cluster of blooms + foliage. As a caveat, if there are enough stems, an arrangement featuring one species is also striking.
As you consider your arrangements, identify the colors you already like to decorate with—whether neutrals or cool hues or warm or a blend of all—and how the types of foliage and blooms will complement one another. Most annual cutting flowers (those that last one season) come in a variety of colors, although the less saturated hues require a bit more of a search. But even zinnias, which often come in standard seed mixes of bright pinks, purples, reds, and yellows, can be found in gentle creams and blush tints. I invite you to read my most recent piece to help move you toward colors you’ll be happy with.
Because, in any arrangement, a blend of texture and size is desirable, planning arrangements first also ensures a visually rich flower garden.
Prioritize foliage.
Foliage fillers—nonflowering leaves and viny things—provide the foundation for robust arrangements. In my estimation, they set arrangements apart. They also take up room and therefore extend your supply of show-stopping blooms.
As I wrote above, I understood fairly quickly that, in the same way that I am drawn to neutral colorways and fabrics and clothes and lots of green, I prefer mostly neutral flower arrangements with a good bunch of leaves. I realized that if I could grow my own foliage, I would not only have a beautiful base for flowers but also perhaps have simpler foliage-only arrangements into the fall.
Among my favorite foliage are mahogany splendor hibiscus, dusty miller, bronze leaf fennel, and ivy. I enjoy their color profiles, but more importantly, they grow well in my yard. The first is hard to find in potted form but grows easily from seed, and the latter two are fairly easy to find at nurseries and home improvement stores. The burgundy hibiscus comes into itself later in the season, providing a great filler or even centerpiece for fall. Others that provide good structure for arrangements are foxtail fern, ornamental grasses, and herbs like sage.
For year-round decor, consider flower varieties that dry well.
I would rather not buy flowers in February when my flower plants are all still in seed form or sleeping under the snow, so each year, I grow one or two species that dry well and hang them after I’ve picked them in the summer. Not every flower has cooperated as I would have liked, but I’ve had success with Craspedia, Globe thistle, Nigella, and Strawflower. Store them upright during the autumn and Christmas seasons, and then, in the bland of mid-winter, you’ll be able to decorate with a memory (and prophecy) of sunlight.
Plan ahead.
Several years in a row, I found myself anxiously designing against spring’s fickle clock. It is disheartening to wait for seeds to arrive in shipment (or be found in stores) while the spring planting window passes. To know that the garden is mapped out and seeds are ready to be ordered come spring, on the other hand, gives quite a sense of peace. That’s why right now is the time to plan the seeds, bulbs, and such you will pant for next year’s cutting garden. Some companies allow pre-order with shipping in the spring, whereas others send a reminder email as soon as the order window begins. Spring-blooming flower bulbs, however, should be planted in the next month or so for standard climates and can be ordered and shipped about now. Then, when it’s springtime and time to plant, you will be free to enjoy the work.
A big caveat and final thoughts
If you’ve been considering decorating with more fresh arrangements but the cost of all those store bought flowers is daunting, or if you’ve been looking for a reason to spend more time outdoors, or if you just want more beauty, growing a cutting garden might be satisfying.
However, even as I write, I grieve this other thing I am adding to the long list of things we can do on our own. In a culture where homesteading is trendy and chickens are pets, even if this is not your reality, there’s a temptation to absolutize the value of making our own ways and challenging the systems. That’s just to say, please do patronize your local florist when and if you can and keep an eye out for the special flowers that unexpectedly grace the corner of the grocery store.
But now you have time to prepare practically and emotionally for the work of caring for flowers, from seedlings to surprisingly hearty plants. Gardens are, after all, like babies, needing more intense care in the early days and weeks but growing stronger and more independent with time. By the end of the summer, they can feed themselves and are almost walking.
* For the nuts-and-bolts advice on sun and soil, I recommend reading gardening books or asking local nurseries for tips—or just boldly learning from doing it.
A wonderful article with so much great information. Especially for growing things in the Midwest.