Description
Not every bed on the farm is for eating. A few are just for looking at, and these ten are the ones we come back to every year: Sunflowers, Marigolds, Zinnias, Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Black-Eyed Susans, Snapdragons, Bachelor’s Buttons, Sweet Peas, and Petunias. Between them you get height, color, and pollinators covered from the first warm days of spring clear through the first frost.
Sunflowers give you the big dramatic stalks kids love to measure themselves against. Marigolds are the workhorse, planted along the edges of our vegetable beds because they hold up in heat and are said to help keep some pests off nearby crops. Zinnias are our cut-flower favorite, the more you cut them the more they bloom, which makes them one of the few flowers that reward you for picking them. Nasturtiums do double duty as a peppery, edible bloom right off the vine, and Bachelor’s Buttons and Cosmos are about as low-fuss as a flower bed gets.
Getting started
- Sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, nasturtiums, and bachelor’s buttons are warm-season, direct-sow after your last frost once the soil has warmed.
- Snapdragons and petunias appreciate an earlier start and can handle a light spring chill, often started a few weeks before your last frost.
- Full sun gets you the best blooms on nearly all ten, aim for at least six hours a day.
- Zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, and snapdragons reward regular deadheading. Keep cutting spent blooms and they will keep flowering for months instead of setting seed and quitting on you.
- Sweet peas like it cool and appreciate something to climb. Get them in as early as the soil can be worked.
Good to know: Seeds are lightweight and ship anywhere in the country.
