Many brides this year will select either silk floral arrangements for their wedding flowers, or they will pay several times more for fresh cut flowers on the day of their wedding. If you desperately desire fresh flowers, but do not want to pay the florist hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can grow your own. Here are some suggestions for popular wedding flowers that you can start growing up to a year before your nuptials.
Roses
Many brides love roses in their bouquets, but this is the most expensive flower of all. If you plant several healthy rose bushes and tend to them carefully and lovingly, then you or your bridal party can help you cut them the day before or the day of your wedding and arrange them with some greens, such as ivy or lily leaves, and tie the bouquets with ribbon. Roses can survive the winter if they are properly covered or if you plant winter-hardy varieties. Roses are usually spring and summer flowers, but with proper tending, you might get them to last to very early fall.
Lilies
Calla lilies and day lilies are very popular with brides. Day lilies grow quite easily with little maintenance and come in a variety of colors. Calla lilies require more shade and wetter grounds, so be careful where you plant them. Lilies of any kind also grow some excellent foliage for bouquets, so you can use most of the plants in your wedding arrangements.
Daisies or Grecian Windflowers
Daisies, like their sunflower cousins, like to turn their yellow centers up towards the sun for most of the day. They also grow some very nice greenery, so if you decide you do not want any daisies, you can still grow them for the greens. Since daisies are very limiting when it comes to color, consider growing Grecian windflowers, which are also known as "painted daisies" because they resemble a daisy in every way except for the bright and boldly-colored petals.
Daffodils and Jonquils
Floral genetics programs in recent years have produced several new colors of daffodils and jonquils, their much-larger-bloomed cousins. You do not have to grow just yellow ones, but also white, lime green, white with dual-colored center bells, and many more. These hardy flowers pop up in mid- to late spring, are easy to cut and arrange, and are very fragrant.
Snow Croci, Winterberry, Holly and Mistletoe
If planting and growing your own wedding flowers is what you want to do, but you have chosen a winter wedding, you can still grow fresh plants and flowers outdoors. The snow crocus is a pretty little flower that pokes its head out of the snow in the late winter and is often some shade of purple, yellow, white or a mix thereof. Holly and mistletoe are ready for bouquets in November and December, while winterberry plants are perfect all season long. Additionally, you can grow several other flowers and plants in a greenhouse and cut them to include in your wedding flowers too.
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