Whoa. I am not sure what happened last week but those summer temperatures that happened sent me into a tail spin. They were amazing. I know that as a flower farmer I love to push the seasons, like having tulips from Mid February until June? But last week was a doozy. All I could do was keep the water up to everything and keep my fingers crossed. And my toes, and my arms and everything else.
Here is a look at one of the tulip beds. Looking good I think.
I will be harvesting tulips this week. Yay! I would guess I will have a couple hundred for you to select from. Lots of doubles, I can tell by the flower buds, and these in the front look like doubles. It has started. Flower craziness. 750 tulips is this bed alone. Whoa! I hope you all love tulips because I will have them coming on strong.
The tulips will be coming on so strong that Tuesdays will soon be added to the Open Flower Shed days. Stay tuned! Keep your eye on the newsletter that I try to send out the night before to let you know what is available. Bouquets!!!! Tulips!!!! Narcissus!!!! Holy Moley!!!!
The flowers in the tunnel are looking good. As usual, a bit of a rodent problem on the ranunculus. Damn. I replanted about 12 today. On the other hand, the ones in the greenhouse are looking good but I have no idea about bloom time, so stay tuned. I will say I have a lovely crop of oats and pea coming up that a kind rodent mixed with the fertilizer. Never dull here I would say.
Many things that enjoy the cool have been planted out now. All of the perennials, then the Sweet Peas, cornflowers, more agrostemma, clarkia, feverfew, and I don’t even remember at this point. When I look at the beds I see amazing, beautiful flowers. You, even with squinting might say I am looking at what?
It has been a very productive week though. Lots of planting out, irrigation set out, new beds made…then I have more that are ready to go in this next week that are waiting patiently. Not.
Anyway, I leave you with some floral inspiration.
These are in the wrong order, but it doesn’t take much to make something special. Broken pine branches, a sprig of daphne, the first narcissus, and two yellow tulips and a bit of forsythia. In the small jar, three broken tulips from harvesting, some laurel and alder branches. Not rocket science, just having fun, and you should as well.
I will leave you, and your floral imagination until next week. Allie
PS. Shelly has picked up her tulip experiment. I could feel the flower buds so now all the updates will be up to her. I am pretty excited about it though. Some tweaking on my part, but she will have to fill you in on how it goes.