In our Garden Planning for Success series I’ve mentioned the term “succession planting,” and today I’d like to give a simple example or two of how this type of planting/planning can work. Remember, the Big Goal we’re working towards in this example is growing for 15 bouquets/week for 16 weeks in spring/summer. (????If you’re joining now, scroll down for all of the the links in this series!)

If your plan included having 45 sunflowers to use as a focal flowers for each week in July/August, you could succession plant sunflowers to have fresh ones to pick each week. (For this example I’ll use Procut Sunflowers: 1 seed = 1 stem, reliably about 60 days from seed to bloom.) I recommend planting about 25% extra for each harvest days, so you would plant 60-ish seeds about 60 days before each delivery date. 

If your first harvest goal was July 3, you’d want to plan to start seeds on about May 1. If you wanted to keep harvesting each week in July/August, you’d need to continue planting seeds every week in May and June to keep the sunflowers flowing.

Here’s another really simple example of succession planting, but this time for a continually blooming cut-and-come-again flower. Imagine you wanted cosmos available to use all summer. You would want to schedule 2-3 replantings through the season so that you always had vigorous growth to cut from. First, look at your seed packets (or on our handy Days to Bloom printable!) to find out approximately how many days before flowering to plant. For me, cosmos blooms in about 80 days. If I wanted to use them beginning in July bouquets, I would plan to direct sow them on about April 15. With frequent harvests, they might get “tired” before summer’s end so I would likely also direct sow some on May 15 to start cutting in early August, and repeat as needed. Honestly, you might be tired of cosmos by early August, so 2 successions might be enough!

Think through each crop, plug your planting dates into the spreadsheet and your planting plan is complete. Whoo hoo! (Pro Tip: sort your Start Date column & and use that as your chronological guide.) 

Join me next time when we’ll begin to plan garden space!

Other Posts in this Series

• Making a Plan for Success in Your Cut Flower Garden
• Push Through Fear and Make Your Gardening Plan
• A Brief History of Triple Wren’s Humble Beginnings
• Your Reason for Growing Flowers Matters
• Our Bouquet Palette for 2022 (Free Printable!)
• Start Big and Work Small for Successful Garden Planning
• Don’t Fall Into the Trap of Trying to Grow Everything
• Use a Spreadsheet to Make Detailed Plans for Your Flower Garden
• Cut Flower Garden Planning Inspiration
• Should You Start Seeds Inside or Direct Sow Outside?
• Days from Seed to Bloom for Common Cut Flowers (Free Printable!)
• Two Things to Consider Before Starting Your Seeds Indoors