Why I Oughta...

The past few seasons, I've been making cut flower arrangements in jars and vases for the countertop in our kitchen and to give them out to family and friends.  But, over the past few years, I've been reading a little bit about the concept of Ikebana - which is Japanese flower arranging.  This page on KonMari has an overview of Ikebana that includes this top-line description : Ikebana is the centuries-old Japanese art of arranging flowers. The practice, which roughly translates to “making flowers come alive,” uses carefully selected blossoms, greenery and other flora to convey a specific feeling or emotion to an observer – just as a painting or sculpture might. KonMari is Marie Kondo .  The decluttering person.   Architectural Digest has this "Ikebana 101" post that lays out some of the history and practice.  In it, they highlight one particular school's approach to Ikebana that uses three types of stems:  subject, object and secondary.  In low bo...

I have planted up a number of various sizes and a couple of types of eucalyptus in a couple of settings to try to grow as cut-flower accent plants.  First up is Silver Dollar Eucalyptus.  I bought three pint-sized plants from the nursery on the IL/Wisconsin stateline back on Memorial Day weekend.  I have put them in three different spots to see how they do:  First is in the raised bed on our patio with our tomatoes.  This is in mushroom compost: The other two pint-sized eucalyptus went in the ground.  First up is adjacent to the pizza oven bed.  This gets some good sun and I planted it with municipal biosolids: The last one (of these three) is in the corner patio bed.  This went in with the native soil/loam. I also previously bought six Silver Dollar plugs from Garden Club. Those arrived back in early April and I up-potted them into small pots.  As soon as I could (with the last frost), I moved them outside and put six in one of the Greensta...

This is the fourth dahlia tuber posting this year.  First 17.  Then 15 more.  Then six to get to 38 .  Today, I'm showing the location of four other ones (three that are new and one was a replacement for a dud) to get my total up to 42 dahlias. This post is going up in mid-June, but back in late May, I added four more dahlias to three spots in the garden. Three (in purple) went in the Pizza Oven East.  One went IB2DWs down by the sidewalk (also in purple): 42 Tubers in:  27 new (to me) with 15 legacy dahlias (Melina Fleur x 5, Ivanetti x 2, Mystery Fox x 2, Ivanetti x 2, Wizard of Oz x 2, Sweet Nathalie, Pooh). Now with 38 tubers in the ground, here's the latest recap:   28 new (to me) or trialing with 10 legacy dahlias (Melina Fluer x 5, Ivanetti x 2, Sweet Nathalie, Wizard of Oz, Pooh). I have now planted a number of multiples:   5:  (1) Melina Fleur 4:  N/A (0) 3:  (2) Burlesca , Great Silence 2:  (12) Crichton Hon...

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...

I posted two different sets of photos and details of the dahlia tubers that I've stuck in the garden in various spots.  First was 17 tubers.  Then, a post showing 15 additional ones .  That made my total:  32 dahlias in the ground.  25 new (to me) or trialing with 7 legacy dahlias (Melina Fluer x 3, Ivanetti x 2, Sweet Nathalie and Wizard of Oz). This post is going up in mid-June, but back in late May, I added six more dahlias to three spots in the garden. These six, plus the previous 32 = 38 dahlias in the ground.  So far.  Here's an annotated plot of the locations with the latest ones in green:   South Sun Wall 33. Pooh This is a spot that I've grown Melina Fleur each of the past two seasons.  Last year, these Pooh dahlias got pretty tall, so being close to the fence might give me more support options. Under The Elm 34. Blue Wish This was the largest of the dahlia plants left in my home nursery (my patio), so in it went.  Without rabbi...

Just like the other plugs from Garden Club, I finally got around to planting out the Silver Dollar Eucalyptus plugs back in mid-May.  This post is going up a month later, but these have been planted since mid-May.  These arrived in early April and I up-potted them to slightly larger pots and nursed them along first indoors then moving them outdoors. Seven of the eight original ones made it to planting day.  I put six in one Greenstalk planter and the remaining one in another. Below are a few photos showing that planting process: I recently bought a few more eucalyptus plants from a small nursery along the Illinois/Wisconsin border and I'll post about those in the coming days.   Last year, I grew one of these in a patio container and it performed *fine* - I was able to get some clippings for arrangements.   I included in my 2026 to-do list the idea of using the Greenstalk for accent plants (exactly like this): 9. Accents, too.   Speaking of ...

Yesterday, I continued my "planting out plugs" series with eight Lisianthus Celeb Metallic Blue plugs from Garden Club that went in the front yard Saratoga Ginkgo bed.  That brought my total up to 20 new (to me) accent and cut flower plugs that have been planted out (8 Didiscus + 6 Silver Shield + 8 Lisianthus = 20) Today, I am showing just three more that went into the Island bed in front: 3 Gomphrena Audray White plugs from Garden Club .  I have more of these to plant out, but I'm limited by space and chicken wire.   I put two together and one under a Dollar Tree wire garbage can.  You can see them below: That brings my total to 23.  8 Didiscus + 6 Silver Shield + 8 Lisianthus + 3 Gomphrena Audray White = 23 new (to me) accent and cut flower plugs.  All eight of these didn't survive (I think one died) the two month LIMINAL SPACE they lived in between when they arrived and when I planted them out.  These went out on May 22nd.  And they're ...

Day three of accent plant plug being planted-out in the garden. First day was the eight Didiscus Lacy Blue in the Island bed.  Yesterday, I showed a photo of the six Silver Shields going in the corner bed by the back patio .   That brings my accent plant total to 14 (so far).  Today, we continue with eight more cut flowers that are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb Metallic Blue .  Lisianthus has taken on sort-of a mythical state amongst the cut-flower-farming-tok world that I've fallen into.  It is (by reputation) very slow growing, so no idea how these will do out in my garden.  To help them, I planted all eight in the newly expanded Saratoga Ginkgo bed out front .  This gets good sun and because of the annual Vinca in the adjacent bed, I'll water the heck out of them.   Below is a photo showing the eight Lisianthus Celeb Metallic Blue in rabbit protection cages.  I'm hoping that like everything else, as these put on some ...

Yesterday, I started the posting series about planting out my cut flower plugs with the first eight Didiscus Lacy Blue in the front yard Island Bed .  Today, I'm showing the six Plectranthus Silver Shield plugs in the corner bed in our backyard near the patio.  These are going where I planted a mix of Dusty Miller and border Dahlias last year, but in a newly expanded bed.   These plugs also came from Garden Club and because I ordered them for too-early of a delivery , I had to pot them up into something larger.  Of all the varieties that came from Garden Club, these Silver Shields did BY FAR the best.  All eight of them were happy two months later.   Overall, I've been really happy with the Garden Club plug order - from the greenhouses they came in to the vibrancy of the tiny plants.  A positive experience.  I'm trying something different with these:  no rabbit cages.  Instead, I'm applying Liquid Fence.  *Fingers Crossed...

I started planting dahlias in May and posted the first seventeen a few days ago.  In that post, I showed the locations and talked about how most of them (14 of the 17) were new to me varieties with just three legacy dahlias (Melina Fleur, Ivanetti and Sweet Nathalie).   Today, I'm showing the next round of dahlias that went in the ground.  These were planted in the second to last week of May - the day after the first seventeen went in. I planted them in three spots:  Pizza Oven West, IB2DWs and the back of the Island Bed.  Here's the updated planting map with the latest 15 tubers in blue. Here is a breakdown of what is planted in each of the three beds: Pizza Oven West 18.  Burlesca 19.  St. Martin 20.  Wizard of Oz 21.  Rip City 22.  Creme de Casis 23.  Melina Fleur Below is a look at these six.  The Melina Fleur is still in the container.  But, all of them are protected by rabbit cages.  For now.   I...

Dahlia season has begun here.  With the initial planting of seventeen dahlias.  That was day one of planting the tubers that I started out in the garden.  I made this annotated map to show (mostly myself) where everything is planted because I'm growing many new (to me) varieties for the first time and have a much more diverse lineup than in previous seasons.  Note:  this post is going live in early June, but I planted these on May 20th.  Last year, I planted them in the first week of June , so this is almost three weeks earlier.  Here, below is that map.  So far, I've put six in the "Pizza Oven West" bed, seven along the side of the house in the "South Sun Wall" bed and four "Under the Elm".  You can see them numbered in red: Pizza Oven East 1.  Crichton Honey 2.  Cafe Au Lait 3.  Creme de Cognac 4.  Blue Wish 5.  Milena Fleur 6.  Jowie Winnie Here (below) is a photo below of these plantings.  Note that I pu...

A few of the tubers that I ordered turned out to be not viable.  And, they were sold out of a like-for-like variety, so they offered up a replacement based on their current, in-stock inventory.  I went with something I've never grown, but is pretty well-known:  Cafe Au Lait dahlias.  See below for the tuber and the package that they arrived in recently: I haven't (in the past few seasons) grown any Dinnerplate Dahlias, so this will be a new (to me) experience in terms of size and staking.  Here's what Longfield Gardens says about C-A-L : Cafe au Lait is the variety that launched today's dahlia mania. These big, romantic blooms are must-have for anyone who loves flowers. Cafe au Lait's blossoms are wonderfully variable in hue depending on weather conditions and time of year. You can expect flowers ranging from creamy yellow and bone through blush pink and rose. They are a fabulous cut flower, and like peonies, it takes just a few stems to make an impressive arran...

Last week, my set of tubers from Bonny Blooms arrived (finally) and I quickly got to work planting them up in one-gallon nursery containers.  I ordered seven total dahlia tubers from Bonny Blooms in November 2025.   This was the first time I have ordered from Bonny Blooms and selected four different dahlia varieties:  Bell's Palermo (1 tuber), Peaches-N-Cream (2 tubers), Crichton Honey (2 tubers) and Brown Sugar (2 tubers).  These all were dahlias that I came across in year-end videos on Dahlia-Tok that growers/flower farmers have raved about in terms of how they look and how prolific bloomers they were in their own fields .   I was getting a little impatient because my order from Bonny Blooms had not arrived, so I went to their site where on the homepage they have a little 'chat' widget in the bottom corner .  Based on some advice on a dahlia-growing Facebook group, I pasted my order number in that chat window and inquired about shipping.  A day-...