As you use these winter months to plan your 2024 garden, may I suggest that you include a cutting garden? Edibles in your garden yield fresh vegetables for dinner every evening. Why not grace the table with fresh flowers as well? All you have to do is plant annuals that lend themselves to floral arrangements
My last post was all about growing containerized vegetables on your deck or patio. Growing your cutting garden the same way won’t add significantly to your workload. Just add a few containers and/or elevated beds of flowering plants to your deck or patio garden. Besides adding color to your dining room table it’ll also add color to your garden.
Deck/patio gardens offer several advantages. The most obvious is that you don’t have to go very far to plant, tend or harvest. Just step out your door and you’re there. Equally appealing is that you can stand or sit to tend your elevated bed/container garden, so it doesn’t matter whether you’re growing veggies, herbs or…flowers.
Do your cutting garden the same way you do your edible garden. Plant in nursery pots that you can then simply slip into the elevated bed or decorative container. You’ll use less potting mix , less water and you won’t have to clean out the elevated bed or decorative container at the end of the season. If you aren’t in the habit of saving nursery pots this would be a good time to start. If you need some to get started, check with landscape contractors. Some may give them to you, others will sell them to you at a nominal cost.
Besides the ease of cleaning up In the fall, you may save time and energy during the growing season, too. If some plants die or stop yielding flowers during the season, you can just replace those pots rather than having to disturb the whole elevated bed.
Select your favorite flowers, preferably those that continue to bloom well into the season. They can be started from seed or you can buy transplants. Don’t cut the flowers as soon as they bloom. The flowers you buy at a florist shop were cut days before and flown here from some place else. If you leave them on the plant for a few days before cutting, you may be able to encourage reblooming. It will be like early deadheading. Leaving them there will also keep your deck/patio colorful.
If some flowers quit blooming from quasi-deadheading, just remove those pots from their elevated bed and replace them with something else. When your spring/summer plants finally call it quits, slip them out and replace them with fall flowering plants. The chrysanthemum is certainly the signature fall plant but not the only one by any means. Asters are fall bloomers that are often companion plants to mums because they grow in the same conditions.
You can extend the spring/summer season by selecting plants that bloom well into fall. Violas like pansies and violets, snap dragons and marigold, Black Eyed Susans, autumn sedum, cranesbill (hardy) geraniums, sweet alyssum and heuchera, which is also called coral bells, as well as petunias and daylilies all bloom well into the fall.
I bet you never imagined that you could have fresh flowers on your table three seasons of the year with so little extra effort on your part. It’s a different way of gardening that fits perfectly with adapting your garden and gardening to accommodate your changing physical challenges.
Read more in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener
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