 Hi everybody, we're going to talk about cut flowers now and it's nice to take some flowers out of your garden and bring them inside and put them in a vase and enjoy them indoors. And here to talk to us about some of her favorite cut flowers and how to grow and cut them is Barb Lashkowitz. She's a research specialist here at NDSU. Barb, welcome to the forums. Thank you very much, Tom. Welcome everybody to the last night of spring favorite garden forums and hopefully the snow will be disappearing soon and we can actually get out and grow some flowers for our homes. So what I want to talk about is, like Tom said, growing your own cut flowers. Some ones that work well, some ones that I'm not necessarily going to mention, ones that don't. But certainly you can ask me about specific ones that I don't mention and just take a look at how we can harvest them and then bring them in and keep them alive as long as possible in our homes. So first of all I just want to talk about the criteria for a good cut flower and one of the main criteria is that it has a long stem length so it will go into a vase. So something like a lissum that's very low to the ground is probably not considered a real good cut flower. Another good thing is that they last up to a week or 10 days in a vase. They should produce lots of flowers but certainly when we talk about perennials there's a limited quantity to harvest from and they should be easy to grow. I'm all about low maintenance and the easier the better. Some other things you might think about is fragrance and certainly in the spring with the lilacs blooming they're very short-lived but that nice fragrance they give off is wonderful as well as some lilies that we can grow and then if you do have allergies you might want that in mind too. You don't want to be sneezing with all the flowers in your house. So let's just talk a minute about the site where you would grow cut flowers and you know everybody out there is already a gardener so you know there's some important things to think about for blooming plants so I don't want to spend a lot of time here but usually the plants that bloom the best are going to need six or more hours of sun a day. You want to protect them from the wind and maybe that's not something you think about with regular flower gardens but some of the cut flowers once they get taller the wind tends to blow them over so if you do have a windy spot you might need to stake them over the course of the summer. For your water sources you don't want to be dragging water if some of these might require a little more water to keep up the good bloom and then you also want good drainage so you don't have them waterlogged and with any other type of gardening if you have an issue with your soil and if you want to know if it needs nutrients or if it's lacking in something you might want to have it tested and that's the website for the NDSU soil testing and you can get all the details of how to do that there so two different ways you can also grow cut flowers specifically with annuals you can make rows of cut flowers and making them accessible so when you pick you can just walk along rows and pick but you might have an existing landscape and again more often with perennials we see this and then you might be harvesting plants within the landscape and that works perfectly well also just depending on what kind of gardener you are okay so let's talk about harvesting in particular best time to get out and harvest is usually right away in the morning earlier the better when it's still cool out the plants aren't going to be water stressed from the heat of the day you're not going to get hot out there cutting should have the sharpest knife or shears that you have to cut the stems and there's two ways you can do it you can either carry a bucket of water with you so that as soon as you harvest some you can put them right into water that might get a little cumbersome though so you can there are a few exceptions but you can harvest them without the water bring them back to where you have water and then just recut the stems maybe cut an inch or two off the bottom before putting them into water one exception that I can think about the top of my head are hydrangeas which are really they love water so you might want to have water for those as you harvest them but most other things they'll do okay being cut for a little bit before you get them into water so stage of development is also important and those of you that already cut flowers and bring them into your house probably just intuitively know this as you cut but there's three main stages and it's very important with some that you cut them at the proper stage or you won't get as much enjoyment out of them so the first is the bud stage these are solitary type flowers that will continue to open after you harvest them so things like peonies and iris which hopefully will be seeing shortly roses and the lilies you can cut those when they're just hardly opening and they will continue to grow and mature so you can have them around for quite a while then we have spike type flowers and some examples here the laksber, blad, snapdragons and then plumes out of our ornamental grasses I love working with grass plumes but you want to get these when one or two flowers are starting to open and color is showing on the other buds and they will continue to open then as the blossoms die you just pluck them off and the other ones will keep blooming. Grass plumes in particular you want to get them early if you harvest them when they're too mature they shatter and it has a mess all over and the last stage are the fully open flower head types so these are the composite type flowers usually sunflowers marigolds the zinnias and the asters they do not like to be cut in the bud stage they will not well they may open a little bit more but usually once they're fully open that's when we want to get them at so what about the bugs because we all know in the summer there's lots of bugs everywhere and we don't necessarily want to be bringing them into our home and certainly thrips are a big issue especially with things like snapdrake ends of spider mites might be a problem flies are everywhere so they might come in regardless that sometimes ants on the peonies are making an announce to parents so I guess what I try to do after I harvest them I might take my garden hose and rinse them off really good and kind of give them a shake and then I'll arrange them in my kitchen sink wash them off again see what falls off and then just put them out and if I if I get something creepy crawly then I do I'm not I'm not a big I don't have a problem with it certainly if you really don't want any critters in your house you might not want to be bringing flowers in from your garden so let's take a quick look at arranging the flowers and really the easiest thing to do is to just get some fresh water in a vase and pop them in there mason jars that we see here on the bottom right they're really trendy right now I like to dress them up with a little bit of raffia or a bow to kind of finish them off most flowers will just do really good with nice clear water now there is a trick with bases if that big thing frustrates you because you put your flowers in and they flap all over a really quick easy thing you can do is make a grid over those and I've got three tapes here that for sure you might have scotch tape or masking tape at your home the one on the left is the florist tape that they use I just make a grid it makes smaller holes and then you put your flowers in once there's enough stems in there they'll support each other and at that point what I like to do is pull the tape off so you don't see it certainly if you're using something like a scotch tape or a clear tape you can leave it on but sometimes the tape starts getting in the way and then you would want to remove it as well another fun thing to do with the clear bases is to fill them like halfway up with pebbles or marbles and that will also give you a nice base to support your flower stems florist foam is also a possibility although most people normally don't have this sitting around their house it's like a sponge that soaks up the water and you can get it in a craft store you soak it up you put it in your container and then you insert the stems into the foam and then you want to make sure that container stays full of water so the foam retains that moisture as well so your flowers can live as long as possible but I guess most people are more likely to just have bases hanging around than blocks of floral foam so how do we make sure flowers last as long as possible and this is whether you're bringing them in from your garden or if you get a bouquet from a florist these are all good tips to get them to last as long as possible and the key with flowers and they've done some studies on this is the cooler you can keep your flowers the longer they're going to last so you want to keep them out of any direct sunny even if you have a nice bright sunny bay window and flowers would look gorgeous there you don't want to necessarily put them there because the heat of the sun really dry them out and and shorten their base light keep them out of any drafts from a furnace or an air conditioner and the way this spring is going our furnace might be running more than our air conditioner but that air also will dry the flowers out and shorten their lives and they keep them away from any appliances that might give up heat you want to pull up any foliage that's going to be under the water because that will decay in the water and that bacteria that grows from that decay will clog your stems up check the water change it every two or three days especially if it's starting to look cloudy and as you do that you also might want to re-cut your stem and so many blockages that might inhibit the uptake of the water and then you can also use flower food in the water again there've been many studies done that show that commercial flower food does extend the base life of flowers it provides a source of food it lowers the pH of the water which makes it more drinkable for the flowers and it also keeps the water clean which you know keeps the bacterial and the fungal growth down so you can check with your local florist and they may have this available for purchase or whenever you do buy flowers from a florist you should get a little packet of food that goes usually in a quart or a liter of water some other tips before we get into some specific flowers with the annuals the more you harvest the more they will produce so you want to get out and harvest early and often so that they keep growing and producing with perennials of course that's not going to be the cake because typically they have a set number of buds but then you just have to plant more of the perennials to get more of the flowers and then if you really want to get a different diverse selection I might suggest starting your own seeds of course that's a whole another talk about starting flowers and all that stuff but there are a lot of fun things these are three catalogs I ordered out of Johnny's in particular it seems to be a little weird toward the farmers market and they're not the commercial but the growers were not only cut flowers but also produce but they all have a good selection of stuff so let's talk about some specific annuals and there's many I haven't included and I guess it's just for you guys to go experiment or your own and see see what works well so the first few slides some specific bases I put together and the flowers I use and then I have just specific flowers but the first one is a base that has Lizzie and this and skate yosa basal basil foliage and purple thong grass and Lizzie and this is probably one of my favorite cut flowers because it just that flower it's got a long stem it's got a long base life the double blossom ones resemble roses the colors are lavender pink white and then some mixtures of them so they just work really well there are some shorter Lizzie and this that don't work as well so if you're going to grow my would try to get the taller ones skatey osa this is the annual skatey osa also cushion flower also very nice with a long stem and I found it very easy to grow the basil foliage might be something that you wouldn't think of to use but it's just got a really nice texture and color to it then you get that nice fragrance makes you hungry once the pasta and it just it's a nice filler and then the purple thong grass leaves leaves would work the flower heads work well also but again with thick heads you want to make sure you harvest them when they're really young so they don't shatter okay here's a real simple base with zinnias and Malina's which is pink paintbrush grass and this is a really nice annual grasses while my photo doesn't do it justice the flower heads do look like pink paint bushes just a really pretty vibrant pink and again my zinnias photos nothing but it paired really well with a pink zinnias you know simple easy not a lot of thought just pop minnabase and again the zinnias you want to harvest them when they're fully open and then on the top left is dahlia's again with the base one kind of late getting on the dahlia bandwagon but they also are wonderful cut flower and last up to a week in a base the right fountain grass you can kind of see with the dahlia's there and then if you look closely at that base that clear glass base I took a variegated leaf and wrapped it around the outside which is another fun thing to do with the bases that gives a unique texture and color to it in the bottom shot is choreopsis again with the nasal and fountain grass very simple and fun to do all right just some straight flowers now snapdragons glades very common spiky flowers the thrips do like these flowers though you don't like thrips in your house want to stir clear of these and then the egg is stacky that's also hissup it's a member of the mint family and so it's one that when you harvest you're going to get a licorice scent or a bubblegum scent some fun things there status and gamfrina are two typically dried flowers but you can also work with them fresh or you can harvest them and dry them and keep them around later gamfrina again I just love the texture the look doesn't have super easy to grow doesn't have a lot of insect problems the one on the right is called fireworks and it looks like little explosions of fireworks in your garden okay a ridge Iran it's the purple pineappley one on the left and that's another one that the whole plant is that purplish blue color and I have actually picked these and put them in a vase with no water and they just they're like dried flowers already and then they last you have them in a vase all winter long and they do start to fade eventually but you've got that nice texture amaranth on the top right it's very trendy now with that you know hanging pendulous flower and love lice bleeding is its common name and then helichrism or straw flower another dried type flower that you can harvest it and it will dry you can use it all year long again the grasses I love working with the grasses annual fountain grass on the top left we see quite often sweet potato vines if you grow those you know and if they're really growing wild everywhere you can chop them up give them a good haircut put them in water they'll root you can get more plants and then the cypress the papyrus king tut and baby tuts also give a unique texture and look into the flower designs okay some perennials and woody plants to take a look at and I'm going to go from spring down to fall with these because we all know they have certain bloom times and bloom frames tulips and daffodils are starting to come up right now even though the snow I mean daffodils are probably one of the first things to start poking their heads up and they are nice for cut flowers but they really don't last very long then you really need to keep these cool don't expect them to give you that week of color unfortunately and then lilacs as well they're incredibly short lived in a vase but it's so nice to bring them in and have that fragrance in your home and don't forget about branches before they leave out willow dogwood for city are fun accents and then if you get them late enough in the winter they should break but in your home and you've got another accent as well so going late spring early summer of course the irises with their nice fragrance and the peonies and then baptism I don't know any if you grow that but that has a real pretty flower and a nice foliage as well alliums and there's so many different sizes of alliums they're great as a perennial and a cut flower delphinium's and they spike they're a little more temperamental to grow in your garden than they probably are gonna need staking but another nice spike flower and you know echinacea it's a very coarse-looking flower I don't know people think of it as a cut flower but it's certainly I've worked with it before and it's very tough hustle foliage I saw in somebody's office once just a low base with a single big hustle leaf in it it was just so striking and simple and there's so many different kinds of variegated and chartreuse and dark colored foliage is that that's an option I would think and then the flowers people don't like the flowers but they smell good and they they will last in a base as well roses of course kind of everybody loves a nice fragrant rose and then hydrangeas are nice not only cut fresh you can leave them on the plant till fall let them dry and then cut them and spray paint them and have some fun Halloween or Christmas looks with those also okay getting into later summer leatris of course is a typical florist flower it does attract monarchs though so if you don't want to discourage the monarchs you might want to leave them out there many types of lilies the orientals have the nice fragrance there's asiatics as well and then perennial this is feathery grass calamagrostis again those heads are nice to work with and finishing up in the fall asters are nice and asters are great because they will look at like a 30-32 degree temperature and their color just gets deeper and better mums of course are also a nice one and then solid a go the golden rods are a really nice cut flower they don't cause your hay fever so feel free to bring them in and enjoy them in your home as well all right so I just again there's a lot of left out but just you know don't be afraid to experiment and you know gardeners should always take notes on everything so you know what works and what doesn't so just do that and it will be fine and that's it it's great