Picking a handful of flowers is a dream, and entirely possible if you choose to grow annual summer flowers in your garden. Annual summer flowers are known as annuals and have the characteristic of going from seed to full bloom in a single season before wilting and dying. Next season, you can sow new seeds if you want the same flowers again. Sometimes, you’re lucky, and fallen seeds start sprouting spontaneously, giving rise to new flowers. Poppies often exhibit this delightful trait!
Many of these annual summer flowers also have another pleasant characteristic: the more flowers you pick, the more flowers you get. When you harvest a flower, you stimulate the growth of the plant, which has to produce seeds for its reproduction. This type of flower is often referred to as “cut-and-come-again”. An example of this is sweet peas, which, as soon as they have the chance to form a pea pod from their withered flower stalk, stop blooming. Sweet peas are a great example of how the more flowers you pick, the more flowers you get.
If you have limited space to grow your flowers, focus on flowers that thrive when harvested, such as summer phlox, snapdragons, zinnias, and cosmos. This way, you’ll have a maximum number of beautiful flowers throughout the season and can enjoy them endlessly!
Author: Hanna Wendelbo
Fact checked by Erik Hoekstra
Last updated 2023-12-30
