Looking for a few foliage ideas that are ready to use in early summer? There are so many plants that have to “harden up” over the summer months and don’t really come into play until August and later. I’m thinking about you, especially, eucalyptus! Those late foliages are beautiful, and worth the wait, but we need foliage in the early months, too.

In my time as a flower farmer and florist in the northern Adirondacks, I’ve learned to test and trial and explore as many plants as I can each season. After years of hard work and research I’ve been able to build and maintain a seasonal event design studio (May-October) that ONLY used our own-grown botanical elements.

Here are some of the plants that are helping us the most in the foliage department right now - zone 4, northern New York State. Scroll down for detail shots and shopping links.

Maltese Cross

My current favorite is Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica)! I mentioned this plant in the IG live about perennials, but our discovery this season is that we like it EVEN more before it blooms. We’re seeing STRAIGHT, TALL (2-3ft), STURDY, LEAFY stems that aren’t getting wilty or wimpy, even when first cut. We harvest early in the morning into cool clean water. And we’re finding that the stems do fine in a cooler or at room temp. Maltese cross can also hold up well when harvested at other times of the day. See the images below for some market bouquets made with Maltese Cross greenery.

Good news! Maltese Cross is EASY to grow from seed. We got our seed from Swallowtail Garden Seeds. And it is a cold hardy perennial, thriving in USDA zones 3-8.

The bouquets above have maltese cross, lupine, baptisia, camassia, and 1 stem each of an OT hybrid lily. Everything is perennial. (We grow the lilies as annuals, though, in successions.)

2. Apple Mint

Do you love or hate mint? We LOVE it. And here’s why: I’d rather weed out extra mint ANY day than spend time and energy trying to get at dandelion roots. In my time as a flower farmer, I’ve learned to appreciate plants that thrive without our labor. Mint is one of them. If you’re worried about mint spreading, you can plant it in an area that you’ll be mowing around or put it in a container. We start using our Apple Mint as soon as it is tall enough for our intended purpose. Shorter stems are great in bud vases and our wedding clients always rave about the scent when we include some pieces. The apple mint grows tall enough here by early summer (I guess it’s technically late spring) that we can put it into our market bouquets and larger vase arrangements, too. Mint has a good vase life, but it needs a water source. Our apple mint starts came from Farmer Bailey and they’ve had some on their “Available Now” list recently.

We also love Mountain Mint and the beautiful soft blush flowers it produces if you can stand to let it bloom. It makes a great cut flower foliage, too, but our Mountain Mint is slower to reach useful heights than the Apple Mint.

3. Golden Marguerite

The second foliage recommendation is along the same lines as the first. We suggested Golden Marguerite last summer as a great cold hardy, chamomile type perennial, with little flowers resembling craspedia (which is difficult to grow here). It is also easy to start from seed and prolific once started. It can spread by runners and self sown seeds. We cut ours back to make sure it doesn’t crowd out other plants. But we feel that is a luxury and not a problem. We could easily dig up the seedlings and sell them as potted plants. Golden Marguerite gives us tons of stems that can be used as lacy foliage before the flowers bloom. We bought the seeds from Select Seeds

Golden Marguerite

4. Forsythia

Maybe you thought you bought and planted that forsythia for the early spring flowers. Whelp — I think you may like their near-evergreen foliage even more. Forsythia is great for practically any floral use and it works well in installations (like arbors). We grow Lynwood Gold forsythia. It prefers USDA growing zones 4-8. Our plants came from Fast Growing Trees. Most of our usual wholesale tree and shrub providers only offer a smaller, less hardy variety of forsythia.

5. PENNYCRESS

I love cress. Persian, Hoary, Green Dragon. They’re all beautiful. But field Pennycress is my favorite. It has larger seed pods and makes great filler in bouquets. Like other cress varieties, it is non-wilting for use in arbors and installations. Pennycress is larger in scale than the other cress varieties we’re familiar with. It grows about 3 feet tall and each plant produces about 10-15 stems for us. It is low maintenance and does not require good soil.

If you leave some stems in your beds or near disturbed soil, you’ll likely see plants that have self-sown the following season. It can also be used as a cover crop. My recommendation for getting started is to direct sow seeds in the late winter for a spring harvest. This process most closely resembles the natural season of the crop, while protecting your seeds from a longer period outside (if they were fall sown). Sow your seeds when the weather is still cold with temperatures. It’s ok if temperatures are still dipping to freezing or below. Cress likes a cool start. Direct sowing is very effective here in zone 4.

This plant is great fresh or dried. Of all the foliage options listed here, this makes it most versatile in my opinion. If I could only grow one of these, penny cress would be it. Our first penny cress seeds came to us in a load of compost. They sprouted naturally and managed to escape our weeding efforts (they can look like weeds to start!). I’d wanted to start some for a long time. I’m afraid sources of pennycress seed are not immediately obvious. We’ll save seeds this year and try to make them available to you. I am hesitant to recommend any of the sources that are appearing to me right now through a web search. If you know anyone who is growing it, I suggest you ask nicely to acquire some from them.

6. Penstemon

Penstemon (beardtongue) made this list because of the range of foliage colors it can present. I believe we are growing “Dark Towers.” There are also green-leafed penstemons. This useful perennial forms beautiful flowers in June (here) and the flowers that are left on the plants will drop seeds, allowing for more smaller seedlings to develop. Flowers are purple, pink, red, blue, or white. Penstemon stems are sturdy and rubbery. They gain height (some up to 40 inches tall) through the early weeks of summer leading up to flowering. The spire-shaped flowers look sort of like small snapdragon florets. They’re an easy addition to our market bouquets. And we are happy to transplant their tiny seedlings and grow our crop in the spring. Bluestone Perennials offers a beautiful collection of Penstemon. If you are looking for larger wholesale quantities, I recommend using their online shop to do a little research and then see if you can locate the varieties you’re most interested in. As always, be sure to check the growing zones for the varieties. Not all types are hardy for us here in zone 4.

7. Sedum

Sedum (stonecrop) is a valuable perennial flower in our fall line up. We can’t grow enough ‘Autumn Joy’. The flowers are long lasting, resistant to wilt, and fit easily in autumnal color palettes. But these plants are also wonderful in the early summer. They can be used as foliage in design work and, once tall enough, can even be used in taller market bouquets. They are drought tolerant and easy to grow. Pay close attention to plant height when selecting your sedum. Make sure you choose varieties that will serve your intended use. Some shorter types are great for use in personal flowers or as potted plants/event favors. The shorter types make great low maintenance ground cover and can be grown under peonies and roses. Bluestone Perennials has a great list of sedum varieties.

8. Yarrow Ptarmica

These reliable perennials resemble feverfew or baby’s breath more so than the yarrow many of us are used to. Their foliage is very different, too! It is more ever-green in nature and the stems and leaves look a bit more like rosemary or lavender than the ferny, wilt-y leaves of other yarrows. The flowers can be used fresh or dried. Seed link.

9. Ninebark

Once the ninebark starts blooming we start using it in design work and market bouquets. Make sure you are using the stems that are more woody. New spring growth should be allowed to harden up some over the course of the summer before use. Our ninebark plants came as wholesale plants from Spring Meadow Nursery.

10. ViBURNUM ‘All that glitters’

A common type of viburnum (Arrowwood Viburnum), may be growing on or near your property/growing space/neighborhood. A number of viburnum hybrids are highly sought by florists and designers. You may be able to grow them easily in your area. The tall (10ft+) viburnum that grows wild here in the Adirondack Park forms natural hedgerows and along the sides of the roads and tree lines. We take inspiration from the success of those plants to grow a few other kinds of viburnum that are preferred in the floral world. They make beautiful flowers and berries, but their greenery is great, too. ‘All that Glows’ and ‘All that Glitters’ were bred for their foliage and ability to produce berries. We use them for those two purposes, too. These fast growing shrubs produce many straight stems topped with long lasting, glossy green leaves. Our viburnum plants were purchased wholesale from Spring Meadow. Here is their current selection.

11. Lily Foliage

We’re not above it! When the situation calls for greenery and we don’t have other options or the weather impedes a harvest outside, we’ll head to our lily crops (basement or greenhouse grown in the winter and spring) and use immature or budded lily plants for their greenery. The harvest of these stems sacrifices flowers that would form later, but it may be a worthwhile trade off if you need some greenery for high ticket designs. Lily foliage is long lasting and works great in arrangements and bouquets.

I hope this post was helpful. These plants work well for us here. The takeaways from this post: we often think of perennials as having short seasons. They aren’t “cut and come again” flowers like most annuals. But, many perennial plants have valuable foliage. We can extend the season of use for our perennials when we consider how we can use them for foliage, too. Note: if you harvest completely from any perennial, you jeopardize the ability of the plant to survive, and you may prevent it from flowering. Always leave some stems for flowers if you’d like to use them later. Leave a few to go to seed if you’d like the plants to do some self-propagating. At minimum, leave some foliage to allow for photosynthesis and the continued growth of the plant. Which plants provide valuable foliage for you in early summer?