3 Summer Flowers You Can Start Today!
- Jenna Taylor
- Jun 9
- 4 min read
Zinnias
Sunflowers
Celosia
These are by far my favorite (and the easiest) annuals to grow.
They can be direct sown into the ground or started in trays. Personally, I do both. I like the security of starting the seeds indoors so I know they're not going to be stolen by birds or squirrels (because they don't care how expensive your seeds are) and I like the ease of just being able to plant the seeds and forget them.
They are versatile in any arrangement and in the landscape.
Pollinators love them.
They can be planted in successions (meaning they can be planted all summer long for season long blooms).
You can find seeds for these flowers anywhere: at your hardware store and online.
My favorite online stores are:
Zinnias
The classic garden flower and by far one of the easiest to grow. There are many varieties of zinnias including short landscape varieties that are usually found as flower starts at your local hardware store or nursery and MANY cut flower varieties used by flower farmers and back yard gardeners everywhere. The difference being stem length. Landscape varieties are usually compact and don't grow taller than 1-2 feet at most. Cut-flower varieties will grow several feet tall and produce long, thin but sturdy stems.
Some of my favorite varieties are:
Queeny lime series (I LOVE the red variety)
Benary's Giant
Oklahoma
Forecast (found at your local hardware store)
**A note when buying seed mixes: generally in any seed mix, you will have a variety of colors and they almost always include red and yellow. Seed mixes are not evenly distributed with colors and more often than not, I end up with a lot of the color that I don't care for or I was hoping wouldn't grow. Seed mixes are a wonderful way to get your feet wet and to just add a splash of color to your garden or landscape (pollinators don't care what color the flowers are!)
Starting seeds
Place seeds 1/4" deep in cells or soil blocks. Or sow 1/4" deep and 4-6" apart in rows in the garden. Seedlings should emerge in 3-5 days. For longer stems and more blooms, pinch the center growing stem when there are 4+ true leaf sets to encourage branching. Always pinch or cut your stems above a set of leaves to encourage side shoots to grow. Blooms in as early as 30 days for some varieties and up to 60 days for most varieties. For continuous blooms, consider starting seeds every 2 weeks and transplanting to the garden or direct sowing if space allows.
Harvest Time
Harvest when the flower is fully developed and it passes the wiggle test. Cut above a set of leaves to promote further branching.
Sunflowers
Nothing says summer like sunflowers. Sunflowers come in so many varieties, colors, heights, branching or single cut, pollenless and with pollen. Heck, you could even buy a bag of black oil sunflower seeds and have a whole field of sunflowers for yourself and wildlife!
I've grown my fair share of sunflowers and my favorite, consistent, pollenless, single cut varieties are the ProCut series. White Lite and Gold Lite are my absolute favorites.
Starting seeds
plant seeds 1/2-1" deep in seed trays or in the ground, spacing 6-12" apart. Seeds should germinate in 5-7 days. Bloom time is anywhere from 60-100 days depending on the variety.
** A note on pinching sunflowers: For any flower that says they are a single cut flower, DO NOT PINCH THESE FLOWERS. Single cut flowers are exactly that: one and done. No branching, no side shoots, just one flower per plant. This offers optimal stem length but also requires some planning for successions unless you want just one crop of that plant all at one time or to wait another whole cycle for another crop to be ready to bloom (which in some growing climates, there may not be another 60 days before frost arrives.)
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Say you start your ProCut sunflowers April 15 and you transplant them after your last frost on May 1st. These take 60 days from the time they are transplanted until they bloom. You should have sunflowers blooming the first week of July. If that's the only round I planted, once I cut these ProCut flowers, I have no more sunflowers for the season. If I start another round of seeds the following week, say July 10th, I could get another round of sunflowers by the end of September. This would be fine here in Knoxville, zone 7, but someone up north in growing zone 4 would be cutting it close to their first average frost date and may have to consider protection.
OR
If I started successions of sunflowers (and I have the space for them) April 15, April 30, May 15, May 30, June 15, June 30, July 15, July 30, August 15 and maybe August 30, I could have sunflowers that bloom in 60 days: as early as June 15, June 30, July 15, July 30, August 15, August 30, September 15, September 30, October 15, October 30.
If you have BRANCHING sunflowers, these are ones you can pinch just like zinnias and will have multiple blooms per stem. This information will be found on your seed packets!
Harvest Time
For the longest vase life, harvest just as the petals are starting to lift off the center of the sunflower. It will continue to open in the vase.
Celosia (Cockscomb)
Celosia is a wonderfully weird flower. They dry beautifully and can be spikey, fan-like or look like colorful brains. There are so many colors and varieties, but over the years, two common varieties I've seen from flower farmers are Flamingo Feather Celosia and Celway Terracotta. These flowers LOVE the heat and do best in hot, full sun.
Starting Seeds
Starting indoors, light aids in germination so do not cover with soil. Direct seeding outside, barely cover with 1/8" soil to keep from washing away. Plant 6-12" apart. Germinates in 8-14 days.
Harvest Time
Harvest when the flowers are fully developed and the stem below the flower is sturdy (passes the wiggle test). Can be harvested for fresh flowers or dried. If drying, harvest at the same time as for fresh and keep in a cool, dry place to fully dry.
Happy growing!
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