Why I Oughta...

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs .   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue , Phlox Cherry Caramel , Plectranthus Silver Shield , Gomphrena Audray White , Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue . When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon. I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses': All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foli...

Yesterday, I posted my Garden Club plug order and talked about how all six varieties are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue is the first one up.  I bought eight plugs and this is my first Lisianthus.  If you follow any flower farmer on Instagram, you can't go a week without hearing about Lisianthus.  They're rose-like and from what I've come to understand have good 'vase life'.  These "Celeb 2" Metallic blue are described by Garden Club as: The 'Celeb' series features large to extremely large, fully double, fringed flowers. This series dominates the Japanese Lisianthus market, and many of the cut flowers we see imported from Japan are Celeb types. Those Japanese gardeners.  They're so prolific .  Anything BLUE is of immediate interest to me, so the name made these an easy-add.  The photos show a more purple color, but we'll see what happens when/if they bloom: Source via Garden Club Ball Seed says : Huge blooms with strong, w...

This past weekend, I published the 25 items on my 2026 yard and garden to-do task list and included a number of cut-flower-related items.  Growing dahlias.  Supporting dahlias.  Growing more accent plants in the vertical garden.  All were on there.  But, so was another one - number 8: 8. Experiment with other cut flowers.  Plant them in the ground (in the garden beds) and add some variety to my arrangements. New varieties.  That means new (to me).   I'm a foliage gardener.  But, I have had so much fun becoming a flower gardener, too.  I've learned so much about dahlias the past few seasons and have found some flowering perennials that I can use in some cut flower arrangements, too.   But, this year, I wanted to try some new flowers that I can use in my arrangements.  Why?  Because, if you look at them, they're VERY dahlia-heavy .  That's not a bad thing.  But, if you're not changing and learning, you'r...