My Flower Cutting Garden

June 1, 2026

So much is growing and blooming at my farm, especially in my flower garden.

The perennial flower cutting garden is located just outside my main greenhouse at the foot of my long clematis pergola. Every year, I add a number of flowering plants to this collection. And right now it is bursting with vibrant colors - the poppies, peonies, Baptisia, lupines, columbines, and irises are all putting on quite a show.

Here are some photos, enjoy.

: This garden bed is just outside my fenced flower cutting garden – both are among the first ones seen when visiting my farm.

: I wanted the plants to be mixed, so every bed in this garden would be interesting and colorful.

: I grow many alliums here at the farm and they continue to bloom so beautifully. These easy-to-grow bulbs come in a broad palette of colors, heights, bloom times, and flower forms. They make excellent cut flowers for fresh or dried bouquets. What’s more, alliums are relatively resistant to deer, voles, chipmunks, and rabbits.

: Here are some of the many lupines. These flowers are attractive and spiky, reaching one to four feet in height. Lupine flowers may be annual and last only for a season or perennial, returning for a few years in the same spot in which they were planted.

: The lupine plant grows from a long taproot and loves full sun. The flowers are produced in dense or open whorls on an erect spike, each flower about one to two centimeters long. The pea-like flowers have an upper standard, or banner, two lateral wings, and two lower petals fused into a keel.

: Look at them exploding with rich colors.

: The leaves of the lupine are also quite interesting. They are grey-green with silvery hairs. They are palmately compound in groups of nine to 17. Leaflets are two to five inches long, and up to an inch wide.

: These are the large leaves of Rodgersia – a genus of flowering plants in the Saxifragaceae family. Rodgersia are herbaceous perennials originating from east Asia. The common name is Roger’s Flower.

: And here are the Rodgersia flowers. These tiny white to pink flowers arrive in late spring into midsummer.

: These bearded iris flowers get their common name from their blooms, which consist of upright petals called “standards,” pendant petals called “falls,” and fuzzy, caterpillar-like “beards” that rest atop the falls.

: This is the tall and stately foxglove plant, Digitalis purpurea. These add lovely vertical interest to any garden. Foxglove flowers grow on stems which may reach up to six feet in height, depending on the variety.

: Baptisia produces loads of sturdy spikes filled with rich pea-like blossoms that emerge in mid to late spring. The showy terminal flower spikes are followed by inflated seed pods. The pea-like flowers are attractive to butterflies and other insect pollinators.

: This is Baptisia ‘Carolina Moonlight’. This plant produces rich buttery yellow pea-like blossoms.

: The columbine plant, Aquilegia, is an easy-to-grow perennial that blooms in a variety of colors during spring.

: Here is a white columbine flower. On this, bright apple-green foliage forms under the tall stems bearing pure white flowers and short curled spurs.

: Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris, grows along both sides of the path of my cutting garden. It is a clumping perennial which typically forms a mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edge light green leaves, with tiny, star-shaped, chartreuse flowers.

: Oriental poppy blossoms, Papaver orientale, last only a week or two, but during that time, they provide one of the high points of the gardening season with its bold colors. The flowers appear to be fashioned of crepe paper and can be more than six-inches across on stems up to three-feet in height.

: I have peonies in this garden, but I also have a garden filled with only herbaceous peonies in shades of pink and white. Peonies love cooler climates where they get pronounced winter chill. Some will do well in warmer areas. All are also worth a try in dappled shade.