Long Gone Bouquets

I'm still digging through my old photos.  I took a lot of pictures last summer but failed to post any.  I think I lost my blogging mojo somewhere.

June blooms - Spirea, Filipendula and Scabiosa

I usually try and pick at least one bouquet of flowers every month out of my garden.  I love flowers indoors and putting together bouquets gives me another perspective on my garden.

A simple bouquet of peonies and lady's mantle in early July

My theory is if my flowers look good together in the garden they should look good in a vase.  But that's not always the case.  Sometimes they don't go together at all or I'm missing some critical element and I find myself rethinking my planting schemes.

Siberian iris and lady's mantle

Sometimes it's a simple issue of some plants don't make good cut flowers.  I don't design my gardens for cut flowers so that's not necessarily a bad flaw.

Late July brings Filipendula blooms, Veronica, Pearl and Ligularia

A mistake I do see though is a lack of green filler.  I always struggle to find some green to set the flowers against.  The reason is obvious, my garden lacks shrubs and other woody plants.

August bouquet - Asparagus leaves, Rudbeckia hirta and Rudbeckia 'Golden Glow'

I get caught up in the blooms sometimes and forget that you need a backdrop.  The green framework is what the flowers hang on and is very important.  Something to consider for this upcoming garden season.

Triumphs and Tragedies

It's been awhile since I went on walkabout on a Friday night and perused the garden.  Tonight was the perfect night for a stroll as the weather has cooled considerably.  Even my little buddy decided it was a good night to tag along.

I collected another bouquet during my travels.  

Peonies have given way to roses and veronica.  The lady's mantle is still blooming strongly and provides plenty of filler.

I had this notion in the spring that if I could just get the vegetable garden underway it would be self regulating until fall when I would gather up all the tasty food.  Good grief I'm more than a little naive some days.

I have been picking peas all week and I noticed tonight I have to get back in there again.  In fact there's probably another week of picking before we're through.  It's a double edged sword.  Fresh peas taste out of this world but it means the rest of the garden gets neglected... again.

Which means I didn't notice this until it was too late.

My new copper beech is in trouble.  The leaves are all dried and shriveled.  I have watered it now but the damage is done.  The real trouble was that this tree didn't have a good root system when I bought it.  I was not impressed when I removed it from the pot.  Far too little roots for such a large specimen.  I won't be visiting that nursery again.

The beech was not the only tragedy this evening.  The odd looking echinacea have morphed into alien species.

I've been wondering for a weeks now what the heck was going on with these plants.  They just look worse and worse.  Yellow coloured skinny leaves, bug holes, dying leaves - they don't look like echinacea any more.  Two plants are affected.  I'm new to echinacea so don't have a clue what's going on.  Any ideas what the cause is?

For those following the sordid tale of my composting mishaps - I finally gathered my courage and visited the compost bin these evening.  Yes, it has been several weeks since I last opened up the bin.  I felt sick every time I thought of digging through that again so I've been avoiding it.  Tonight though I thought - put on your big girl panties, you can do this.

The good news was I did not see a single mouse nor hear any squeaks.  I did however find snakes.  PLURAL.  They reared up at me when I poked them.  I did not get a photograph.  I think the rule from here on in when visiting the compost bins is always bring back up.  One person to hold the camera and one person to carry a shovel to fend off any enraged critters.

This is a much nicer view than snakes

Who knew composting could be so adversarial?  It feels a bit like chasing out unwanted squatters.  Although I should probably thank the snakes for taking care of the voles so efficiently.

One last stop was made at the very front of the property.  I'm starting a new garden bed there.  There's a slight dip that I have noticed gathers water when it rains.  So a couple willows were planted, including this very pretty Hakuro Nishiki dappled willow.

In addition to the willows I had an idea that some butterfly friendly plants would be a good idea.  To that end I brought home some Bee Balm from the plant sale in the spring.  I'm sure I asked about the colour and I could have sworn it was supposed to be pink.  Which would have gone quite nicely with that dappled willow.  This is what I found tonight.

Quite beautiful, but definitely not pink.

Flowers of Summer

I was at someone's house the other day and they had a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers for the table.  It occurred to me I haven't picked a single bouquet this summer!  Where's my head been at?  I usually start bringing blooms indoors in the spring.  

So I came home and decided to bring some summer colour into the house.

I've become infatuated with Pinterest lately and pinning flower arrangements has got me a bit preoccupied.  Funny how I manage to pin bouquets but not create one of my own!  

What I do like about Pinterest though is the variety of arrangements and colour combinations there to inspire me.  Pink and yellow is something I have seen online and I knew I wanted to use peonies as they are at their peak right now.  I just needed to find some yellow.  Luckily I was able to find just what I was looking for.

Peonies don't get much better than this.

Lady's mantle is a beautiful yellow/chartreuse and makes excellent filler in a bouquet.  Light and airy compared to the peonies.  A few hosta leaves added for some greenery and voila.

Welcome to summer.

2012 Flower Bouquets

I try to collect a bouquet for each month during the growing season.  A reminder of what was in bloom, something pretty to brighten up the house and make use of all the vases that collect like dust bunnies on my shelves.

The last time I posted about a bouquet though was back in July.  I kept gathering them, and photographing, but somehow in the hustle of summer they failed to make it onto the blog.

Here's where we left off in July.

The bright orange of daylilies in mid-summer.

Orange gave way to yellow in August.  Yellow always seems to be the predominant colour in the late summer garden.

Dahlias, feverfew, variegated euonymus and plume poppy were featured in this August bouquet.  A bit of bright sunshine brought indoors.

By September things had begun to cool off.  Purple asters took centre stage, combined with agastache and peacock orchids.

Set against the deep green leaves of meadowsweet and a matching green vase.

November brought with it dried flowers to keep indoors over the winter.

A new birdhouse is temporarily living indoors until spring.

Each year hydrangea blooms, dried to perfection in the late fall wind, grace these bouquets.

This year I also added the seedheads of rudbeckia, nigella, astilbe and miscanthus.  The colours are subtle but the texture is eye catching.  These will keep all winter long.

Finally in December I placed a container of winter greens at the front door.

Spruce and pine boughs were complimented by red dogwood stems and sparkly dollar store sticks.  A bright red bow to top it off.

Now deep under a blanket of snow, another season of bouquets has ended, and I'll wait for spring and more blooms to come.

Daylily Bouquets

The daylilies (ditch lilies) have been blooming their heads off these past few weeks.  Under the poplars there is an explosion of orange.

Initially the double flowered pink roses were in bloom as well which made me smile.  What an unlikely combination but it's rather nice.

Both of these plants were here when we moved in.  Remnants of an old garden?  I couldn't resist gathering up some of the blooms to bring indoors.  But what to put next to that bright orange?

I went in the opposite direction of light pink and instead picked a dark contrasting purple using Darwin's Blue Speedwell, then filling out the bouquet with white astilbe and flowering ciltantro.

What I have discovered about daylilies though is the blooms, as the name suggests, only last a day.  My bouquet fell flat in short order.  Lucky for me there's a ton of daylilies out there so I just picked a whole new batch and tried something different.

Instead of contrasting colours I tried complementary.  Orange daylilies with chartreuse lady's mantle, white shasta daisies and white feverfew.

Have I mentioned how delighted I am these days to have a garden with enough flowers for picking?

Spreading the Love

One of the issues with creating bouquets for my own house is that I'm not often here so I don't get to enjoy them.

I spend every day at the office so only our flower sniffing cat really appreciates the delights that I bring indoors.

Not that the cat isn't important too but he can go outside whenever he pleases and sniff the flowers in the garden.

So I had a bright idea this week.  Why not bring the blooms to work where I can see them all day and others can appreciate them too.

Our office gets a boost of colour and I get to enjoy my blooms all day long.  Why didn't I think of this sooner?

First Bouquet of the Season

Flowers have begun to appear in the last couple weeks and I was able to pick my first bouquet of the year recently.

While I don't have a large selection of flowers, it isn't necessary to have a huge vase full of blooms to make an impact.

These dainty red bells liven up any room.

With just a stem or two of asparagus and wild ferns to fill it out.

November Bouquet

This might look like a re-post but it isn't.  I just liked last November's bouquet so much that I decided to recreate it this November.  I picked these dried flower heads just in time as today we had our first legitimate dump of snow this season.  15 - 20 centimeters of the white stuff (that's 6 or 7 inches for those using Imperial) is now coating the garden.

Same vase as last year.  This is one of my favourites as it catches the light wonderfully and is very heavy so it won't fall over.

Many of the same plants were used such as yarrow, sedum, ligularia and hydrangea

And a few new ones too, like these rudbeckia seed pods

And dried astilbe

This dried arrangement keeps all winter long in our house ensuring I have a reminder of the garden for months to come.

A Dahlia of Two Colours

October is almost over and I completely forgot to pick a bouquet of flowers this month!  Luckily I was out in the garden today cutting down dahlias to store the tubers for the winter.  Because our weather has been so mild up to now the dahlias were still blooming despite a little frost damage.  So as I cut the plants down I also picked the last of the flowers and created a bouquet for October.

Dramatic white dahlias with red stripes

Dark pink dahlias with yellow highlights

Meadowsweet leaves for greenery

The most interesting thing about this bouquet is that all these flowers came from the same plant.  Amazing isn't it?  Take a second and look again.  Here's a photo of a flower on the plant.

This flower is quite a deep red with yellow highlights yet you can clearly see behind it a flower that is almost completely white.

An all white flower tinged with just pink
and yet the flower to the left contains more yellow

The first blooms I saw this year from this plant were much like the one above.  The base colour was white with dark pink to red highlights.  But as the blooms continued through summer I became more baffled.  Each succeeding flower seemed more out of step than the last.  The general colour combination on any given flower is white, yellow and a dark pink or red.  But what colour is the most predominant changes from flower to flower.

After a little research I discovered that colour variation in dahlias is referred to as a Sport.  Breeders look for these variations, or sports, as this is how they create new hybrids.  A plant that is producing an attractive flower on one stem will be used to take cuttings.  These cuttings are then grown on for several years until a stable colour is produced.  Unfortunately dahlias are not reliable and will take it into their pretty little heads to change colour at whim.  Sometimes reverting back to their original colour or changing into something entirely new.  A frustrating trait at times but one that has allowed breeders to create the hundreds of colour and shape combinations that home gardeners so dearly love which isn't such a bad thing at all.

September Bouquet and Reminder

I must be getting old because time seems to be flying by faster than I can blink my eyes.  It's the end of September already and time for this month's garden bouquet.

Each month Noelle at Ramblings from a Desert Garden reminds me to bring a little of the beauty from outside, inside to be appreciated.

I knew whatever my bouquet consisted of it had to include dahlias.  We've had frost warnings recently and I know when the frost hits the dahlias will be the first to succumb.  Bringing them inside will preserve them just a little while longer so I can get my fill of their beauty.

Also included were Polka Dot Bachelor Buttons.  They bloom in shades from dark purple to blue and white.

A little cilantro gone to flower filled it out and I was set.

A reminder that if you haven't had a chance to leave a comment on my post on Novica then you'd better hurry.   The draw for the $50 gift certificate will take place this weekend!