Magenta, pink, orange, red and yellow zinnias blooming on tall stems above broad green leaves in a garden bed

01

What a season of flowers involves

Sow in spring, cut all summer

The year has a simple shape. In early spring you sow seeds in trays on a windowsill, or wait and sow straight into the ground once frost has passed. By late spring the bed is planted, and for a few weeks the work is watering and pulling weeds while the plants fill in. From early summer the job flips to cutting: a walk through the bed every two or three days with snips and a jar of water, taking the blooms that are ready and snipping off the ones that have faded. The first hard frost in fall ends it. You pull the plants, spread compost, and start again from seed next spring.

02

Five ways to start

Open one to see where to start. Sweet pea growing, sunflower growing, chrysanthemum growing and lavender growing can each add their own lines to the kit.

Mixed cutting patchA bed of easy annuals (zinnias, cosmos, marigolds) sown together. This is the default start: the seeds are cheap, they forgive mistakes and they flower for months. The base kit covers it.

Start here

Look up your last frost date, then pick a spot the size of a door that gets at least six hours of sun. Follow the steps below to sow it with a mix of zinnias and cosmos.

Frost dates by zip code

Sweet pea growingClimbing vines grown for scent. They want cool weather, so they are sown early and finish when summer heat arrives. They need something tall to climb and picking every other day.

Start here

Add the sweet pea gear to your kit and sow the seeds in deep pots four to six weeks before your last frost. They need cool weather, so this is the one flower you start while it is still cold.

National Sweet Pea Society

Sunflower growingThe fastest result from the biggest seed, and a good one to grow with kids. Branching types give armfuls of stems from a few plants, and single-stem types give one bloom each.

Start here

Add the sunflower seeds to your kit and push the first dozen an inch deep into warm soil the week after your last frost. Sow another dozen every two weeks until midsummer.

University of Minnesota Extension: Sunflowers

Chrysanthemum growingThe fall flower. Young plants go in the ground in spring, get pinched through early summer and bloom from September to November, after everything else has finished. It is the direction with flower shows and exhibition classes.

Start here

Add the chrysanthemum gear to your kit and set the plants 18 inches apart in full sun. Then find your nearest society chapter and ask when its spring cutting sale is, which is where named show varieties come from.

National Chrysanthemum Society

Lavender growingA woody shrub rather than an annual, planted once and cut every summer for years. It wants the opposite of everything else here: lean, gritty soil and very little water.

Start here

Pour a bucket of water on your sunniest patch of ground. If it is still puddled an hour later, plan on a mound or a large pot instead. Then add the lavender gear to your kit.

United States Lavender Growers Association

Red and pale pink sweet pea flowers on vines climbing black garden netting held up by bamboo canes — Sweet peas climbing netting on canes

Growing guides for each flower

03

Sow your first cutting patch

Tick each job off as the season moves

Small green seedlings with their first pair of leaves in a black plastic cell tray of dark potting mix, with white plant labels blurred behind — Seedlings in a cell tray

Find your frost date

Frost dates by zip code Free lookup of your average last spring and first fall frost

What you can grow in your first month

A tray of seedlings

Zinnias and cosmos are up in four to seven days, and by week four they are sturdy young plants ready for the bed.

A planted cutting patch

One bed of about 3 by 6 feet, cleared, topped with compost and set out with 30 or so seedlings.

Pinched plants

Snipping the top off each foot-tall seedling is a five minute job, and two weeks later every plant has branched into four or more stems.

A sweet pea teepee

Six canes pushed into a circle and tied at the top, with a pinched seedling planted at the foot of each, if you go the sweet pea route.

A row of knee-high sunflowers

Sown straight into the ground, they are usually a foot tall or more at four weeks and visibly bigger every few days.

04

Four skills that keep the flowers coming

Pinching

Removing the growing tip of a young plant so it branches. It feels wrong to cut a healthy seedling, and it is the difference between three stems and fifteen.

Deadheading

Cutting off faded flowers before they set seed. An annual that makes seed thinks its job is done and stops blooming.

Cutting at the right stage

Hold a zinnia stem 8 inches below the bloom and wiggle it. If the head flops it is too young, and if the stem stays stiff it is ready. Cosmos and sunflowers are cut when the petals are just starting to unfold.

Succession sowing

Sowing a small batch every two or three weeks instead of everything at once, so the patch does not peak in July and go quiet in August.

Two hands cutting the stem of a magenta zinnia with small white-handled snips, among green zinnia foliage — Cutting a zinnia with snips

05

What trips beginners up

The slow start

Nothing flowers for the first two months, and the bed looks sparse until midsummer. That gap is normal.

Leggy seedlings

Seedlings grown in weak light stretch thin and fall over. A south-facing window is the minimum, and sowing later outdoors beats sowing early in a dim room.

Mildew and slugs

Zinnia leaves get a white powdery coating in humid weather, and slugs eat new transplants overnight. Wider spacing and watering the soil, not the leaves, prevents most of it.

Sowing too early

A warm week in April is not the end of frost. Zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers die at 32 degrees, so wait for your date.

Planting too close

Seedlings look lonely a foot apart. Crowded plants give short stems and more disease.

Not cutting

Saving the flowers to look at in the bed slows the plant down. Cut hard and it sends up more.

Pets and kids

Sweet pea seeds and pods look like garden peas but are poisonous if eaten, and chrysanthemums can make cats and dogs sick. Plant them where neither can graze.

06

How much time it takes

A wide field of blooming yellow sunflowers stretching to a line of tall trees under a blue sky with white clouds — Sunflowers in full bloom

Plan on one session of an hour or two each weekend to weed, deadhead and cut, plus ten minutes of watering a few times during the week. Sowing a tray takes an hour, and clearing and planting the bed takes one afternoon. The season runs about five months in most of the US, and nothing needs doing in winter beyond ordering seeds.

07

Where to learn more

The back of a seed packet is the first thing to read: it gives the sowing depth, spacing and days to bloom for that exact variety. For the cutting side of the hobby, working flower farms publish their methods free. Your state's Cooperative Extension office has planting calendars written for your climate and a Master Gardener help line that answers questions about pests and soil. Local garden clubs and plant society chapters hold spring plant sales, which are the cheapest source of unusual varieties and of advice from people growing in your conditions.

Free flower growing advice

Bright yellow chrysanthemums in full bloom with orange unopened buds and dark green leaves in a garden — Yellow chrysanthemums in bloom

08

Why the kit looks like this

Seeds are the cheapest line and the one that matters most, so the money goes to the four tools you hold every session: a trowel, gloves, a watering can with a fine rose that will not flatten seedlings, and a pair of snips. The recommended lines start seeds indoors a month early and feed the bed. Each of the four specialties adds only what it needs beyond that. Live plants and long canes are the two lines where a local nursery often beats shipping.

A cream ceramic pitcher of cut red, pink, magenta and yellow zinnias, a white cosmos and blue cornflowers on a bamboo stool on a gravel garden path — A pitcher of cut zinnias and cosmos

09

Fill the seed box

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The sweet pea growing, sunflower growing, chrysanthemum growing and lavender growing lines and the optional plant labels start out of the kit.

EssentialSeeds and plants

Cut flower seed collection

Seeds are the hobby. A mixed collection of easy annuals fills a first bed and shows you which flowers you like growing.

budget

Seed Needs Zinnia Seeds Variety Pack of 9 - Plant a Butterfly Flower Garden

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Flower Gardening

What a season of flowers involves

Five ways to start

Sow your first cutting patch

Four skills that keep the flowers coming

What trips beginners up

How much time it takes

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Fill the seed box

Cut flower seed collection

Hand trowel

Gardening gloves

Watering can with a fine rose

Flower snips

Seed starting tray with humidity dome

Seed starting mix

Bagged compost

Flower fertilizer

Garden twine

Sweet pea seeds

6 foot bamboo stakes

Sunflower seeds for cutting

Chrysanthemum plants

Grow-through plant supports

Frost cloth

English lavender plants

Horticultural grit

Plant labels