Top 10 Beautiful Flowers to Grow in Your Garden

Here is a roundup of my top 10 beautiful flowers to grow in your garden- in no particular order. I love growing flowers almost as much as I love growing vegetables. They make me happy every morning when I go to check the garden. Many are edible or have medicinal benefits, but they really look great in a vase on my table.

Check out our top lists for Herbs to Grow and Vegetables to Grow. You can also start many plants early by Winter Sowing or Grow Microgreens indoors!

Why should I grow flowers in my garden?

There are many reasons to grow flowers in your garden, even if you are mainly want to grow vegetables. Most of the flowers I plant have other benefits besides beauty, including health, pest control, or eating them:

Many flowers are perrenial, or easily reseed, so you only have to plant once if you want
Pollinator attractants – we want those bees, bugs, and hummingbirds to help us grow our veggies because hand pollinating is pretty tedious
Pest attractants (wait, I thought we wanted to get ride of those?) – help keep the bugs away from your vegetables and fruits or bring in the good bugs that eat the bad ones
Bigger soil nutrient profile/companion planting – different plants use and leave behind different nutrients
Weed prevention (we don’t want bare dirt in our gardens!)

I often intermix my flowers in the same beds with my vegetables, but I also have a couple of dedicated flower beds or pots.

Nasturtium

These flowers are super prolific and easily reseed themselves throughout the summer. They seem to really flourish in early summer and again in early fall. There are both climbing and bush varieties, and they come in tons of colors. Nasturtium leaves are edible and a good source of vitamin C. They give a peppery taste to salads or sandwiches. The flowers are also edible (can dry for Nasturtium Flower Tea or to top a salad) as are the seeds (sometimes used to make a pickled garnish similar to capers).

Snapdragons

Snapdragons are my favorite flower to cut and display. I love how delicate and pretty they are. They love a good cold Spring, and a cool Fall, and easily reseed themselves for the next year. There are a ton of colors to choose from, but this Orange Wonder Snapdragon is my best-loved. The blooms are edible and are often used as a garnish.

Zinnias

Do I even need to say anything about these beauties? They look gorgeous in a vase and have tons of colors to boot. It’s such an easy flower to grow, perfect for any beginner. It’s super prolific, the more blooms you cut the more flowers they grow. Plus they are pretty heat and drought-tolerant. There are hundreds of varieties of Zinnia. They attract a ton of pollinators too – I always find bees napping on my Zinnia flowers.

Marigolds

Marigolds are the quintessential companion planting flower. They are easy to grow, attract pollinators, AND they are a trap crop (they attract bad bugs away from your vegetables). The petals are edible and often used as a garnish or in teas. They are also often used for their medicinal benefits similar to Calendula.

Gaillardia

Gaillardia was new-to-me flower in my garden this year, and I fell in love with it. They look like mini sunbursts and are very delicate. The pollinators love this bright red bloom. Gaillardia are drought-tolerant and love the sun. It has been used for certain medicinal uses like colds and digestion. Be careful when saving seeds, the seedhead is pokey!

Calendula

Calendula is a flower I love to grow for medicinal purposes, especially for skin irritations as you often see it used as an anti-inflammatory. I use calendula in many of my tallow balms. Many enjoy using them to top foods as well. These hardy blooms can even handle some frost! Calendula blooms look like mini sunflowers and make beautiful cut flowers.

Strawflower

Strawflower petals are dry like straw, very sturdy, and never lose their color. You might sometimes hear it called the “everlasting flower”. They are very heat and drought-tolerant, and deer don’t seem to enjoy eating them. These flowers are perfect for crafting, as you don’t have to worry about it drooping or falling apart when dried. The blooms are sometimes also used to treat skin irritations.

Poppies

Poppies provide such a cute little “pop” of color. There are endless varieties. They are an early Spring bloom and the neat thing is that you can sow poppy seeds right in the snow and they easily reseed. The flowers are very delicate like rice paper. Deer and mice are not fans of poppies, and they are pretty drought-resistant, so I like to grow these outside my fence.

Ranunculus

Ranunculus are the first flower to bloom in my garden in early Spring. They are like tiny, chubby roses, perfect for cutting and displaying. You don’t usually grow these from seeds, but from corms (they look like brown claws or spiders) instead. You do have to dig up the corms in early summer to dry out for next year’s planting. They grow great in garden beds and pots alike. You can normally find the corms at most hardware stores in the early Spring.

Chamomile

Chamomile always reminds me of a beautiful meadow, and I grow it because I love to drink chamomile tea. There are two kinds: Roman and German, but German seems to be the most common for the backyard gardener as it is an annual and doesn’t take over like the Roman variety tends to (some people even use Roman Chamomile as a grass alternative in their yards!). Chamomile flowers attract pollinators and is used for pain relief or as a sleeping and calming aid.