Why I Oughta...

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

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.