Month: June 2021

It is hard to believe that this is the last Sunday of June. Summer is just zipping by, but the flowers are really starting to fill in and every week there are more offerings to be had. The bachelor buttons are a sea of flowers, and that blue added to a bouquet really makes the bouquet pop.

You might be asking, “But what is new?” Well, the calendulas and rudbeckia are starting to bloom, the grasses are really starting to look interesting, soon we will be having lots of cosmos and zinnias as well. I am hoping that by the middle of July I will be harvesting from everything that has been planted. Well, not everything, because I have some late summer flowers that need to wait their turn.

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Not that I want to jump ahead in the seasons, but I have just placed the remaining tulip order for the spring of 2022. Yikes! The plan is to have 6500 tulips available starting the middle of February on until the natural season ends sometime in May, depending on the weather. I have ordered some stunners so that is something to look forward to next spring. In flower farming, planning for the next season really starts six to 12 months out. Crazy I know, but it takes that long to get crops started and grown to be available in time.

I got the pumpkins and gourds finally planted in the ground last Friday and they made it through the weekend.They are outside the fencing so I am hoping that the local critters will leave them alone.

Speaking of local critters, I have a snake living or hunting under the weed mat in the garden. It startled me when it came out but it had a rodent in his belly so I told it that it could stay and eat to it’s heart’s delight, just give me warning when it appears so I don’t get startled. It needs to live in the lisianthus right now because someone is eating the roots off the very expensive seedlings and killing them. Grrrr. (I refer to it as an it because I don’t know its sex).

I leave you a picture of Orlaya, a new plant for me to grow but I think a keeper. Let me know what you think.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the flower shed, and wish my international friends could visit for a flower fix. Until next time. Allie

Today is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. That is good because it gives me more daylight hours to get everything done, but soon I will lose all this glorious daylight and you know what, that will be good as well. Cheers to summer and all the beautiful flowers it will bring.

We are entering the quiet time in flowers again. Don’t panic, I still have flowers, it is just that there is a slow down between the peonies and when the annuals really start in. I do have peonies that my flower fairies cut when I was away and put in storage for me, I have six stems of stink’n awesome foxtail lilies. Just six stems, well, maybe seven, but not many so I wouldn’t pass these by believe you me. They are tall, elegant and well, you judge for yourselves.

The bellflowers are still going strong, snapdragons, stock, orlaya are all coming in, as well as other flowers from the garden. Some mighty fine arrangements can be made with the flowers that are available.

The Icelandic poppies are still going strong, their flowers are paper thin, translucent almost, on these thin wiry stems but they hold up so well.

I am back to the annual question. I ask you, How many tulips is too many? I seem to have a problem narrowing down the number of tulips that I want to grow for you all next year. Hmmm, what is a flower grower to do?

Until next time. Allie

I say that because, honestly if I don’t know what season it is these days, how on earth do my flowers? Tropical days, quickly followed by cold nights and days, quickly followed by more topical days, and now quite pleasant.

The peonies have not liked the sudden temperature spike, anymore than I did, but I had a very faithful core of friends who kept the plants and seedlings well watered and were harvesting flowers that were trying to explode from the heat every few hours, putting them in water and cooling them down while I was away at a very important memorial service. My thanks goes out to everyone who pitched in to keep my flowers going and helping to keep me sane. Actually I don’t know what task has been more difficult this spring.

I know you are all hanging off the edge of your seat to know what is happening here at the farm. The second batch of sunflowers have been planted with one more seeding to go. The next batch of glads get planted this week. I still have peonies and the Icelandic poppies are just stunning. I have called it quits on the ranunculus and anemones for the year. They were lovely but they don’t like the heat and I need to make room for a new growing structure. The perennials are holding down the fort while the annuals are getting established. One can only plan so much, then mother nature does what she wants.

I am slowly pulling together the tulip order for next spring so if there was a tulip from this year that really pulled at your heartstrings, better let me know.

I leave you with an image of last weeks flower offerings. Every week is new and different, but always something to look forward to. Until next week. Allie

After a short break of not having three open flower shed days, we are back on line with lots of beautiful flowers. This heat of the last few days is really bringing on the flowers, I have lots of Icelandic poppies that are the most intense colors, then iris, foxglove, Canterberry bells, oh! did I mention peonies? They are starting to come in strong. There will be some really different flowers to make some really interesting bouquets.

Just about everything is planted in the garden. The first batch of glads are in, all the dahlias, the first succession of sunflowers, with one lot on deck, and another yet to get seeded. The garden is quickly filling up and is looking good. I have hooked up the irrigation finally and have had a run through and it all seems to be working, for the moment anyway.

I leave you with tempting shots of some beautiful peonies. I least I think they are beautiful.