Why I Oughta...

Our dahlias keep blooming, but this week, we'll see overnight temperatures down into the 40's.  I'm thinking that means that these things will SLOW WAY DOWN and the blooms will be coming to an end.  Here, below are a couple of photos showing some of the dahlias that I cut this morning - Melina Fleur, Cornell Bronze, Orange Nugget.  

The dahlias keep producing blooms.  I can cut an arrangement almost EVERYDAY if I'd like to do that.  I've been giving them away - to neighbors, to my mom, to my sister, to Nat's sister.  2024 is certainly the year of cut flowers - here, here to hitting my 2024 to-do goal for #2 on my list .  Below are a number of blooms that I cut and put in to-go cups for my Mom.

2024 is the year of flowers.  Despite these still be VERY outside my foliage gardening 'comfort zone'.  This started last Fall and continued with my 2024 to-do list with #2 - push thru with flowers . I've done A LOT of dahlias - arranged for the kitchen counter .  And, even a small set of pompon, dark maroon ones .    Now, I have a small Zinnia arrangement.  Mostly composed of the direct-sown Cut and Come Again seeds in the sideyard .  And a couple Yellow Flame Zowie Zinnias from IB2DWs .   Below is what I cut on a recent morning: I will certainly plant these Cut and Come Again Zinnia seeds - in the sideyard.  I'll also put some down IB2DWs, too.  Mark it down for Spring 2025.  

I'm (now) pretty sure that when I planted Cornell Bronze Dahlia tubers this Summer , I was *actually* planting something else.  Why?  Because...the blooms that are coming up in both IB2DWs and in the southside cut flower bed are, well...NOT bronze.  They're dark purple.  Or dark maroon.  And they're small pompons.    Floret has a listing for a Moor Place Dahlia that she calls 'button dahlias' .  That sure looks like what I'm growing.  See below for a few photos of three blooms that I recently cut: You'll also notice in the photos below, a small orange bloom.  That was cut from the sideyard - so I'm *pretty sure* that's an Orange Nugget Dahlia .  But, I also cut one of these from the IB2DWs bed earlier - where I called the bush a bi-color mutation .   So, that's weird, right?  One tuber showing two different flowers?  In two different spots?   I'm (now) thinking that this is LESS of a mutation and more of a mis-labeled tuber situation, right? 

Last week, I showed a couple of countertop arrangements featuring some Zinnias and Dahlias.  Well...we're in the THICK of dahlia bloom season.  Looking back at my 2024 to-do list , #2 on the list was to 'add more flowers' and get past my discomfort with blooms.  And #17 was to 'do more/different arrangements'.  While, these monoculture dahlia arrangements aren't *different*, they're certainly checking the box on MORE.  See below for two more vases 1 of Melina Fleur Decorative Dahlias and Cornell Bronze Dahlia blooms .   1. [I used the word vases, but these are pickle and pasta sauce jars.] ↩

#17 on my 2024 to-do list was to keep going with countertop arrangements .  Last year, I started to bring in some cut flowers and arrange them on our counter.  This year, I've grown more flowers (ahem...comfort zone and all that) and have been bringing them in for the past few weeks. The latest is a two-fer.  A container of dahlia blooms and a smaller one full of Zinnias and some Disneyland Roses.   You can see those two below:  Right now - late Summer/early Fall - is when I'm seeing the most blooms, so it is arrangement go-time.  

It is peony season around here.   When we were first dating, Nat was a blogger.  Her url was iheartpeonies dot com.  The very first thing that we planted in our first garden was a Sarah Bernhardt peony that was a division from Nat's mom's garden.  The story goes that the peony was her great aunt's peony that had been divided a number of times to be planted in various family member's gardens.   That peony ended up back in Nat's Mom's garden when we moved out.  I said - back in 2017 - that it was being 'fostered' .  But, it has stayed there these seven-plus years.   Our new garden didn't have any peonies.  Until 2018 when I bought a couple of tubers.  The first one was Sarah Bernhardt .  The pink peony that you think of when you think of peonies.  It has moved around a few times, but ended up IB2DWS and has grown quite a bit up there.  Last year (2023), I declared was our first REAL 'Peony Season' .  It was the first time that we had blooms; or

I've posted a couple of things in my annual [Christmas Haul] series already - both of which were faux bois.  A small faux bois plant stand .  And a faux bois cache pot.    But, I also upgraded my garden tools via a Christmas gift of these small hand pruning snips.  They are light-weight, have a safety lock and finger grip.  And come with a small, leather holster.  These snips fit in my tool set below my secateurs/pruners and are something that I've been looking to use when it comes to arranging flowers.  The pruners that I use are too much to remove thorns from roses or snipping off flower stems from delicate perennials.   I like the sheath/holster as it helps me keep from LOSING them. If I set them down, there's more visually - to see with the holster.  I've kept my Niwaki pruners in their holster and that's been helpful in me keeping tabs on them.

On my winter evergreen arrangement-making journey this year, I also added a new side-project:  bleaching pinecones.  I've shown a few of my arrangements - including the original and some V2's and all of them featured a number of foraged pinecones.  Some of them were on the tips of the pine branches and others were tucked in with a piece of wire.   When we were last up in Wisconsin, I picked up a few pinecones that were on the driveway.  They were dropped by the upright pine trees.  Here's what they look like pre-bleaching: One-way-or-the-other, I came across the idea of bleaching pinecones as a winter project.  There are dozens of how-to articles like this one that show you the very simple process:  find acorns, put them in a bowl that contains a water and bleach mixture, and weigh them down so they don't float.   That's what I did:  I tucked two into a bleach and water bath overnight.  15-or-so hours later, I pulled them out.  They need a half-day or so to dry o

A few days ago, I shared a photo of what I'm calling V2 of my Winter Arrangements for 2023 .  The first one - where I learned a bit - was in the Santa planter .  V2 is a series of four in various vases from GoodWill that I picked up over the weekend.   Below is a photo the second of the four in the V2 Series that we gave to my Sister (Equation Boy/Man's wife).  This one (as the title of the post suggests) is a bit more wild (I'm not sure that's the right word, but it is the one I'm using...for now) and has no color in it aside from green.  Just like the others, this one is foraged but for the eucalyptus.  Has a couple of large pine branches that have some cones on them and a big bolt of juniper that is covered in berries.  This one lacks the crabapple branch(s) and has more eucalyptus and curly will branches.  This vase is a bit shorter and has a wider mouth, so the arrangement is wider with the branches splaying out the sides.  There are distinct, established '

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos of my first winter (evergreen) arrangement that I put together using foraged materials and a vintage Santa planter that we had on hand.  As is wont to happen around here, things took off fast and winter arrangements are my entire personality right now.  I've put together a number of them and have added an even wider array of materials - some foraged and some bought.  Below is one of these V2 winter arrangements. It features crabapple branches (for some red), eucalyptus (from TJ's), some Magnolia leaves and a number of different evergreens - pines, cedars, juniper and firs.  There's also a couple of different branches in this one - curly willow and red (might be dogwood) uprights. I made four of these (all a little bit different) and put them in vases from Goodwill.  This one is a Hoosier Glass 4090 (Green Swirl) that I was drawn to at the store on Ogden Ave.   The other ones are in reds and/or clear vases - all from GoodWill.  

This Summer, I started to experiment with making my first few arrangements.  They were full of Disneyland Roses, Zinnias and whatever I could snip out of the garden .  I had a lot of fun experimenting with those countertop arrangements the last month-or-so of the growing season and is something that I'm already thinking about for 2024.   With Winter here and everything dormant, I recently opted to try my hand at a winter greenery arrangement for the kitchen.  We had this Santa Claus Holt Howard planter on hand, so I grabbed it and started planning.  See below for the Santa planter: One of the things that I learned this Summer was to try to use a grid in wider-mouth vases and planters to create some structure that the stems can be supported by instead of just being jammed into the mouth together.  I grabbed some of this green hardware cloth and cut a small section.  Below you can see it inserted in the back of the planter: From there, I cut up some of the boughs from our Christmas t

I've cut and brought inside flowers from time-to-time.  Disneyland Roses.  Hydrangeas.  Even Zinnias and Peonies.  Last month, I cut three things:  Zinnias, Floribunda Roses and Anemones and combine.  them . That was my first real attempt at mixing things.  But, I've haven't - until now - tried to bring in a variety of flowers AND foliage (and even seed heads) while attempting to make an arrangement that would sit on our kitchen counter.  Here's my first attempt - featuring only things from our garden beds:  Everything from Euphorbia to Ferns to Hostas to Coleus to Dusty Miller to Disneyland Roses in one container.