Staking 101

While you’re in your planning stage, start thinking about maintaining your garden. Specifically, how you plan to support, or keep your plants from falling down. Many cutting garden plants grow over 3’ tall, and wind and rain can easily knock them down.

Are you planning enough space for each plant? Make sure you have enough room to move about your plants in the early stages. I recommend 2 things if you’re new to the cut flower world. 

1. Plan to give each plant about one square foot of space. This will allow you room to stake your plant early on in the season.
2. If you’re planting into an existing border, make sure you can easily reach the plant from the edge of the border. I recommend no more than 2’ from the edge of the border so you aren’t stepping all over the soil and making a compacted, muddy mess. 

How will you stake your plants? There are many options, but the easiest and cheapest option for small home gardens is to use bamboo canes that are available at most garden centers and home improvement stores.

We have had great success using 6’ canes that we cut in half to give us two 3’ pieces. After you’ve got your 3’ piece, sink the cane a few inches behind the base of the plant about one foot into the ground. Loosely tie the main stem of the plant to the cane using pieces of yarn, any type of string or even thin pieces of old fabric.