Grow Your Own Cutting Garden: The Rule of Thirds

Are you thinking about growing a cutting garden this year? I’m over here yelling “DO IT!” and getting excited for you. I think it would be amazing if everyone chose to get outside, be in nature, and grow something. The mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of regularly getting outside and caring for plants have been huge for me.

This is the perfect time of year to consider growing a cutting garden. You have time to plan out the details of where you’ll grow your flowers, decide what seeds you want to buy, and learn how to best grow them.

A word of caution ! When you start looking at seed catalogs or the garden section at Home Depot, it is SO EASY to look at all the beautiful pictures on the seed packets and want to grow every single variety.

Trust me, I’ve been there! Flowers are so beautiful, and it’s easy to jump into the deep end wanting to grow it all. Although some people may have success with growing anything and everything they grab off the shelves, I want to suggest using a method to choose the seeds for your cutting garden.

If you’re growing a cutting garden with the intent of picking flowers to make bouquets for your kitchen table or to share with a friend, you want to actually be able to make a bouquet, right? If you only grow zinnias because you love them and think they’re beautiful (which you’re right, they are), when you go to make a bouquet all you have to work with is zinnias.

BUT, if you went out to pick flowers to make a bouquet to share with your friend and had zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, and some greenery to work with, this would make a much more balanced and visually appealing bouquet!

So I want to introduce you to the “Rule of Thirds” that I’ve come to learn a lot about since starting a flower farm. It’s super simple: divide your cutting garden into thirds. Grow one third focal flowers, one third filler flowers, and one third foliage.

This will ensure that you'll always have a variety of flowers to work with that will blend and work well together to make a gorgeous bouquet! It will really elevate the look of your bouquets and arrangements.

Now, let’s break down what type of flowers I’m referring to when I say focal, filler, and foliage. Focal flowers are generally the bigger flowers in a bouquet that immediately catch your attention. I typically have two or three focal flowers in a bouquet that I would make and bring to a farmers market. Filler flowers are absolutely beautiful too, and they play more of a supportive role in the bouquet to enhance it. Foliage is the greenery in a bouquet. I’ve seen some people say that they don’t find foliage to be necessary, but I disagree. I think it really elevates the look and feel of the arrangement and helps the flowers to stand out. All of these categories are equally important to make a beautiful and balanced bouquet.

So what do you think of the “Rule of Thirds”? I would love to hear your thoughts below, who’s growing a cutting garden this summer, and if you have any questions I can help answer!

I hope this method simplifies things if you’re getting overwhelmed about what to plant and how much to grow- it’s helped me so much. I know YOU can grow a beautiful cutting garden this year, I believe in you!