40 Cut Flowers We No Longer Grow

Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’ - beautiful from afar, a tattered mess up close

Updated February 13, 2024

On my 1-acre flower farm in Lockport, New York, I grow over 100 varieties of annual and perennial flowers and foliage. My farm has an enormous variety of colors, textures, bloom shapes and bloom sizes. I confidently say that I wouldn’t be the same florist with my style of floral design if I didn’t grow my own flowers. The uniqueness & variety of my arrangements nods to the abundance of my field.

Over the past three seasons, I’ve experimented growing well over 200 varieties of flowers and foliage. Through trial and error, every year I nix varieties that just don’t work as a cut flower for one or multiple reasons.

Believe it or not, saying “no” to more flower varieties every year is the most liberating feeling! I’m effectively narrowing down the list of best cut flowers & foliage, and the only way to do that is by growing and learning what works and what doesn’t.

If you’re a flower grower, please don’t let this list discourage you from trying any of these varieties! This is simply a record of my personal experience and flower preferences. Other flower farmers successfully grow many of the flowers on this list. Everyone’s growing conditions differ, and as such, flower production differs. I have written this post partly to keep track of the flowers I’ve nixed and the reasons why, so I can go back and read it later on, perhaps to convince myself to put the seed packets down.

Here is our 2nd “cut” list from the 2021 season

Cut Flowers from 2018-2020 that I will not be growing in 2021…

COSMOS ‘DOUBLE CLICK SNOW PUFF’ - I wanted to love Snow Puff so badly, but after three years of it being a dud, I’m done. The first bloom is okay although the heads droop so badly they don’t hold up in bouquets and arrangements well. Many blooms grow in deformed. I highly prefer ‘Purity,’ ‘Versailles White’ and ‘Cupcakes White’ for white cosmos. Oddly enough, Snow Puff’s sister, “Double Click Cranberries,” is one of my favorite cuts in the entire field.

SILENE ‘BLUSHING LANTERNS’ - Floret tantalized me with this plant so I tried it and just didn’t keep up with the harvest. The seed pods are cute, but my stems were too short and it isn’t worth the real estate. EDIT: I love Silene ‘Blushing Lanterns’ and won’t go without it. I wrote a whole blog post about it here!

POPPIES - As much as I want to swim in armloads of ‘Champagne Bubbles,’ poppies just don’t last long enough as a cut flower and I don’t have enough use for them super early in the season.

CLARY SAGE - I thought the white-tipped foliage would be such a unique addition to bouquets, but I never used it. The stems are too short. I plan to dig up and plant some of it in my herb garden at home.

BROOMCORN/SORGHUM - Every year I grow broomcorn with the intention of using it for fall wreaths and I never do. Then the mice feast on it in my barn. So we’re saying goodbye to broomcorn until I have an actual use for it (like making brooms?) Edit: If you do fall or even winter wreath making, the broomcorn would be a nice everlasting accent to add to wreaths. If I have room in the future, I may bring this back solely for wreath use.

ORNAMENTAL CORN - I had an admittedly fun time experimenting with heirloom corn this year on the farm. I grew a handful of incredibly unique varieties, including Dakota Black Popcorn, Hopi Pink Flour Corn, Montana Cudu Corn, Oaxaca Green Corn and Strawberry Popcorn (seeds all from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co). While watching the corn grow was fun and harvesting it was even more fun, all I did with it was create a little corn swag for my house. Not worth flower farm real estate, but I will grow fresh corn at home in our vegetable garden. I also had a corn smut problem with certain varieties.

LOVE-IN-A-PUFF VINE - I have a love-hate relationship with this vine. It adds such elegance & whimsy to bouquets and vase arrangements but it’s such a pain to harvest and wilts at the drop of a hat. I much favor hardy clematis, so I’m saying goodbye to Love in a Puff for now — although I imagine I will allow this plant will creep back into my life at some point!

CELOSIA ‘CELWAY WHITE’ - I tried the new Celway line of celosia this year and I’m keeping ‘Celway Terracotta’ in the field, but the White has to go. It just doesn’t do much for me color-wise.

COSMOS ‘APRICOT LEMONADE’ - Underwhelming color, flimsy cut. Seemed to drop petals much quicker than other cosmos varieties.

COSMOS ‘VELOUETTE’ - Another cosmos variety that I love the look of, but it doesn’t last long in the field and is a flimsy cut. I prefer ‘Rubenza,’ which isn’t the same look but satisfies the antique burgundy color palette and is a much hardier bloom.

LEMON BASIL - I grow 5 different types of basil so I needed to cut someone. Although the scent is divine, Lemon is just too short. I’ll stick to growing this one in the edible herb garden at home.

RUDBECKIA TRILOBA - This is the holy grail of cut & come again perennial bouquet fillers, but I’m not a fan of the way it looks. Just not my jam. When I don’t use something because I don’t like the way it looks, that’s when it’s time to say goodbye.

RUDBECKIA ‘INDIAN SUMMER’ - Same as above, minus the holy grail thing. Indian Summer has reseeded itself all over the farm and I’m sick of weeding it, so I will never intentionally plant it again. It does come in handy from time to time though, so I allow certain sections to reseed.

BORAGE, WHITE - There’s no point in growing white borage when you can grow blue borage! The white is rather underwhelming.

SCABIOSA, ‘SNOWMAIDEN’ - Wimpy, wimpy flowers. I will continue to grow ‘Red Merlot’ and ‘Black Knight’ annual scabiosa going forward — they are much hardier post-harvest and in the field.

DAHLIA, ‘PENHILL MONARCH’ - This variety of dahlia is so late that in my Zone 6b climate there is no point in growing a flower that takes this long. I planted this in May and wasn’t harvesting it until mid- to end of September. I’ll stick to earlier flowering dahlias.

CLEOME - I love cleome as a garden plant but it doesn’t make a good cut flower. The stems are wildly sticky, they grow SPIKES, and the petals are fragile and tend to drop after harvesting. Great showy garden plant, though!

CALENDULA - I have been unsuccessful in growing calendula with usable long stems, so I’m saying goodbye.

SINGLE STEM SUNFLOWERS (ALL VARIETIES) - I only grow branching sunflowers going forward. To learn why, read A Case for Branching Sunflowers. I don’t like using sunflowers in my own designs and I don’t get too many asks for them otherwise, so they’re not worth the space.

ZINNIA ‘ZINDERELLA’ SERIES / SCABIOSA FLOWERING ZINNIA - Another one we all want to love but struggle to get that perfect, double-flowered bloom. I learned from another flower farmer that Zinderella-type zinnias only double flower when they receive lots and lots of fertilizer and they prefer cooler growing seasons.

ZINNIA ‘ENVY’ - Many of these blooms grow in brown, in my experience. ‘Queen Lime Blotch’ grows better for me.

MARIGOLD ‘SPUN ORANGE’ - This variety does not produce useable stems (short, grows like a bush), and many of the flowers didn’t actually open or turned brown before I could harvest them. This is a great option for edible flower production, dye garden, or for making marigold garlands, but not as a cut flower with usable stem length. Read here about Growing ‘Strawberry Blonde’ Marigolds.

GAURA ‘WHIRLING BUTTERFLIES’ - I have come to absolutely love this plant as an ornamental perennial in the landscape, but it is a wretched cut flower. The blooms are wimpy and drop quickly. I dug up all of my Gaura and moved it to the entrance of the farm gate and to my home landscaping where they’re very much enjoyed as beautiful, drought tolerant showy plants.

ASPARAGUS - Yes, the veggie! I love using asaparagus greens in vase arrangements but unfortunately my asparagus crop was decimated by the asparagus beetle — and I didn’t feel like fighting him. This makes me sad because in arrangements, asparagus fronds are so dainty and gorgeous.

CHINESE LANTERNS - I thought this would be a fun crop for fall arrangements but this crop was also decimated by what I believe to be flea beetles or similar. I hardly have any bug pressure, but this crop really took a beating so I won’t bother growing them again.

CANNA LILLIES - Again, great landscape/planter flower, but not a good cut. The petals are very flimsy and quite frankly, having another crop to dig up at the end of the season is just too much.

BUNNY TAILS - This ornamental grass is super cute but the stems are really short and it just isn’t worth the time. I prefer ‘Feathertop,’ or foraging for any locally available grasses rather than growing on the farm.

CERINTHE (HONEYWORT) - I love the sweet purple ends on honeywort but I didn’t use much of it, and it doesn’t gather a premium price by the stem.

EUCALYPTUS - Yes. I grew Euc in the uncovered field in 2019 and got a pretty good crop from it, but I’m not field-growing it again. For one, I don’t like using a lot of eucalyptus in my designs. If I have a hoophouse in the future, I will definitely grow Euc en masse to sell to florists and use for weddings that request it.

DUSTY MILLER - Kind of the same deal with Eucalyptus in that I’m not crazy about the way it looks. Dusty also seems to take a long time to get to that usable stem length. I prefer to grow perennial Lamb’s Ear and Wormwood instead.

ORACH - The deer ate it.

BACHELORS BUTTONS - I’d rather double down on scabiosa than grow bachelor’s buttons. Harvesting is tedious.

AGERATUM, WHITE & BLUE - The blue ones are pretty but this flower just isn’t worth the farm space. I prefer other hardier white flowers such as gomphrena, statice and statice; and other blue flowers such as borage and delphinium.

AMARANTH, ‘DREADLOCKS’ - A fun one but not practical for wedding work. For burgundy amaranth, I love ‘Opopeo’ and ‘Hopi Red.’

AMARANTH, ‘MIRA’ - I wanted to love this one and grow bucketfuls of it, but it grew in deformed and seemed to be either diseased and/or buggy. I think this was a personal problem because other people successfully grow ‘Mira’.

ARTICHOKES - Takes up too much space.

ASCLEPIAS PHYSOCARPA (HAIRY BALLS) - I had a fantastic crop of hairy balls in 2019, but florists were not buying it and tons of stems went to waste. It was a hit in my fall wreath class, but I still can’t justify growing much of it anymore. If it was perennial, I’d keep it in the field, but in Zone 6 it has to be replanted year after year. EDIT: May grow again in 2022 for a dried flower crop.

ANNUAL PHLOX, ‘CREME BRULEE,’ ‘WHIPPED CREAM’ & ‘DULCE DE LECHE’ - It’s been 3 years of failure for me and annual phlox. It breaks my heart, but I must give it up. The amount of time it takes for phlox to get long, usable stems is beyond my patience. It must be cut so many times for months before it can be used in a bouquet (at least this has been my experience). EDIT: In 2022, I’m trying annual phlox ‘Cherry Caramel’ but going to plant much earlier and treat as a true hardy annual.

CLARKIA - I wanted to love this one. For some reason, the stems were too short and the rebloom was lame. I will try this again in my yard where growing conditions are slighly less harsh. EDIT: Trying this one again in 2022 because I can’t resist! Will plant much earlier and treat as a true hardy annual.

RUDBECKIA, ‘CHERRY BRANDY’ - This is such a beautiful garden flower but the petals seem to attract bugs. From afar, the flowers are vibrant & gorgeous, but up close, they are tattered and chewed. My favorite variety of Rudbeckia is ‘Sahara,’ which does not experience abuse from the local bug life.