Cut-flower Garden in Central Florida

After a couple of years of gardening in raised beds, and directly in the native central Florida soil, I feel pretty confident about it.

I have done a lot of research online and found almost nothing on growing cut flowers in our area of St Pete, FL. It is common to see fields upon fields of flowers grow in the northern states because of their cooler climates, but it is also possible to grow them here. So, I am going to show you my process from what I have gathered and how I am applying it to our climate.

Cut-flower Gardening

There is no too big or too small of a place to grow flowers in your yard. You can choose pots, planters, window planters, etc., basically any container you can add good compost or manure to, to focus on those flowers alone.

On the Northside of our home, I have chosen to dedicate to growing, which is the backyard for us. We get just enough sun by the fence for 6-8 hours a day that it will work.

We built a low 6ft high raised planter to have about 9” of good manure or compost. I did dig down about 3” to compensate for extra depth and then layered in some cardboard in case any weeds try coming in.

You can hardly tell here, but I have dug down a bit deeper than the 6” of the wood. Then, I covered it with cardboard and brown paper to limit weeds from growing through.

Next, I re-covered the cardboard with the original sand and mulch, and then a 4” layer of Black Kow manure.

Once I had the manure leveled, I added a generous amount of organic, Down to Earth - All Purpose fertilizer to the soil, and then blended it together.

When my seedlings had their first to second set of true leaves, I transplanted them out. The weather was warming up, so I felt pretty comfortable doing that. So this photo is taken about a week after they were transplanted.

Based on my research from Floret, I have chosen to do 9x9” spacing in this 6’x2’ bed. That gives me 3 rows, with 8 flowers in each row. However, I decided to experiment and add a fourth row to the back to grow sunflowers. Since they get much taller, I am hoping it will be okay.

Flowers Planted

For the left side, I have transplanted a mixed variety of State Fair Zinnias, to the right of them in one row I sowed in Nigella - Love-In-a-Mist, and the back row - White Lite Sunflower seeds. Since I sowed the seeds directly, I topped them off with potting soil instead of the Black Kow Manure to make it easier for them to grow through. And since we live in Central Florida, I topped off the soil with wood chips and chopped up leaf mulch to retain the moisture, but I left the soil barren about 2” around each seedling and seed row as to not overwater them. Newly planted seeds are vulnerable to over watering and flooding, which can cause rot and prevent the seed from sprouting.

I plan to transplant 2 more rows of flowers from those I have growing inside from seed. Possibly Phlox, Yarrow, or Garden Mignonette will be planted there.

Finding Space

You can get creative finding spaces to grow cut flowers. After we built this bed, I immediately felt overwhelmed by the many many flower types I have been dreaming to grow, but it was just about getting started. So, I then looked at the other areas in our backyard with sunlight and brainstormed potential barrels or containers I could replace ornamental plants with. We had 3 large poison bulb plants growing along the pathway and we always felt that they were not benefiting us to the fullest. Along with cut flowers, I also wanted more herbs, and having 3 half wine barrels with a blend of both sounded like the best use of the space.

Before (left) and After (right).

In the back by the fence is the cut-flower bed. Everything in the barrels are herbs at the moment grown from seed and transplanted. There are also seeds I sowed last week which should be germinating and sprouting in the next few days. If they get eaten by squirrels, I have a backup in cell trays inside, just in case. I added a clear coat of water resistance on them in hopes they will last longer than their reviews. The soil in these are a blend of planting soil and about 2” of black cow manure to retain more moisture.

I hope this helps anyone in St Pete, Florida trying to grow cut flowers. If you have any experience and can add to this, please leave your comments below!