Do you enjoy arranging flowers but never seem to have enough in your garden to supply your cut flower needs? I love filling my home with fresh flowers during the growing season and have always struggled to balance leaving plenty of flowers in the garden to enjoy there with my desire to bring many blossoms indoors. Finally, after many years, my gardens seem to have attained that longed-for equilibrium: so many flowers that I can cut with abandon, yet feel that the garden appears untouched after I am done.
This past Sunday, as I filled a huge basket with flowers to donate as a fundraiser for a local non-profit, I had the happy realization that the flowers I was growing were not only producing amazingly prolifically, but as long-established plants are also entirely unirrigated. Even in a rainy year, we all need some reliable flowering plants that don’t need irrigation. And when the drought returns, as we’re warned it will, those are definitely the flowers that will be prudent to grow. Here are my top three picks for drought-tolerant flowers that are excellent for cutting.
Alstroemeria or Peruvian Lily
This will always be my No. 1 choice for multiple reasons. Flowers are available in a rainbow of colors with lovely veining and speckling, looking much like exotic orchids. Many are very long-stemmed. They need no irrigation once established and in our climate, come up spring after spring without fail. Deer usually ignore them, gophers don’t like them, hummingbirds love them. (Though gophers may tunnel around them, I’ve never had any eaten and the soil disturbance doesn’t seem to adversely affect the plants.) They produce abundantly from spring through fall. They are extremely long-lasting as cut flowers; over a 2-3 week period in a vase, though the colors become softer and less vivid, the flowers hold their shapes and continue to brighten a room. Arranging them is child’s play – they look lovely alone or in a mixed arrangement. And maintenance is incredibly easy. One thing to note: the stems should not be cut but rather, the entire stem grasped near the base of the plant and pulled free. Then you can cut the stem to the length desired for your arrangement. (A cut stem left on the plant soon yellows and dies, and spoils the appearance of the plant.)
Cerinthe or Blue Shrimp Plant
This annual plant, from a Mediterranean climate much like ours, seeds itself with abandon in my gardens and is always welcome. (If where it comes up is inconvenient, it is extremely easy to pull out.) Fine Gardening Magazine describes the plant as having “leaves like a eucalyptus and flowers like a purple euphorbia.” To my eye, it doesn’t look quite like anything else – I just know that the arching sprays add a graceful architectural punch to any arrangement and that the steely purple of the bracts blends well with all other colors. The leaf color adds to an arrangement too, as the color is silvery gray with an overlay of turquoise. In my gardens, it thrives without any supplementary water. As it begins to look weedy in late spring, I whack it back hard and it regrows. Plus new young plants arise around the feet of the older plants and can be easily transplanted to fill empty spots in the garden.
Shasta Daisy
Though some people don’t like the smell of this plant, I haven’t noticed that it is objectionable indoors. This extremely reliable perennial receives no irrigation in my gardens, yet throughout spring and early summer, it liberally produces large white flowers that add punch and a timeless ambiance and good staying power to any arrangement. Though I grow several types, including those with yellow centers, my favorites are the fluffy double and semi-double forms that appear all white. When taking stems for arranging, if possible avoid cutting below the lower flower buds, so that the plant will continue to produce flowers over a longer season.
Garden tips are provided courtesy of horticulturist Sharon Hull of the San Lorenzo Garden Center. Contact her at 831-423-0223.
