Why I Oughta...

One of the shortest, but brightest bloom seasons in our garden is peony season.  It lasts just a couple of weeks, but it shines bright.  This post is going up in mid-June, but these photos are from the end of May.  Our peonies started to bloom in the last week of May and peaked right before the end of the month.   After a few years of lackluster peony seasons, I moved all of them out of the back beds into the Kitchen Curved bed near the patio and along the driveway in the IB2DWs bed.  Both locations with *more* sun than just about anywhere else in our garden.   That's led to some better blooms.  Including this year when the Sarah Bernhardt peony planted IB2DWs has put on it's best show to date.  Here, below are a few of the flowers on this one pink herbaceous peony: And blooms from the Duchesse De Nemours White Peony that I planted in Spring 2021 : The season doesn't last long (and this year, I didn't preserve any in the fridge like I di...

Yesterday, I posted the first "Getting to Know" posts about the set of plugs that I bought from Garden Club this year: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue .  Next up is another blue bloom: Didiscus Lacy Blue .  This one is a direct recommendation from Erin the Impatient Gardener.  She mentioned that she grows these.  So...that's why I added to my cart.  So, what are they? Here is the listing from Floret : There is nothing like this super-productive, dome-shaped beauty. Each graceful disk is made of hundreds of tiny, forget-me-not-blue flowers, and the branching stems are smothered in buds. ‘Lacy Blue’ will flower for months, is slightly scented, and is the perfect size for bouquet work. Well...that sounds perfect, no?  They get 2-3 tall and need just 9" of spacing. Here is a photo from Farmer Bailey showing these growing in tunnels: Source via Farmer Bailey The Farmer Bailey growing guide mentions that they want some afternoon shade, so I think that mea...

The season REALLY *is* winding down now.  And the colors of the Melina Fleur dahlias are changing color to be much more middle-pink with little yellow appearing aside from the center seed head.  These three went out the door to folks all at the same time.  They each have some Dusty Miller, Arkansas Bluestar and some fern fronds in them.  Each of them are in thrifted or recycled jars (mason or jelly).  My rough count shows that these are (around) the 40th arrangement of the season.  A few with roses, but mostly these ball, pompon and decorative dahlias.

Yes, the season is ending soon.  And, yes, we still have plenty of flowers.  There's some thinking around 'letting your dahlias go to seed' and stop 'deadheading' them weeks before your first frost.  That way, they can finish up their growing cycle and begin to wind down and put energy back into their tubers.  But, I'm thinking....that's for professional growers.  People who are in the business of selling tubers.  Me?  I'm (apparently) in the business of cutting dahlias and putting them in mason jars along with some other bits of foliage from around the garden.  Here, below, are four recent arrangements.  All the same.  It is, for me, getting a little monotonous.  But, that's not the case for the recipients.  These four went to four different places - some on our block, some as gifts and others to my Mom and Sister.    Speaking of gifts....some good news:  I was able to get back about a half-dozen jars.  I'v...

The blooms keep coming, but this time I'm back posting about the Disneyland Roses.  A few days back, I shared photos of all the blooms on the shrubs and then posted about the large growth some of the new ones experienced this year ( one of the Disneyland Roses is four-feet-tall and probably four-feet across ).  In the photo below, you can see some of the flowers that I 'farmed' (get it...flower farming??) and put in this weird, tall glass.  It has a pedestal and I wanted something long and skinny, so I fished this out of the cabinet and pressed it into service.   One of the big differences that I've begun to observe in cut flowers is how different flowers act differently once in the vase.  For the most part, Dahlias mostly stop changing, once they're cut and put in an arrangement.  But, these Disneyland Roses? They keep changing.  Opening up and becoming prettier every single day they are around.  Until...they start to drop their petals....

The Babe had to go to a dinner recently and we both thought it would be a nice to bring an arrangement to adorn the table.  As I've done in the past, I cut a big collection of just one flower:  The Pooh Collarette Dahlia.  I massed them together in a jar and didn't add anything else.  No greens, no accents.  Just the flowers.  And a lot of them:

Four dahlia arrangements.  Put together in a quick morning recently.  The dahlia plants in our garden are really popping off right now.