Welcome summer! With spring’s chilly exit last weekend the summer temperatures are here, and that means goodbye to the spring flowers, the tulips, anemone and ranunculus. Hello Icelandic poppies, corncockle, clarkia, bachelor buttons and many perennials. Soon they will be gone and the summer annuals will be here. What makes flower farming so interesting is that every week there is something different in the offerings, and sometimes a special floral treat. It can be a couple of stems of delphinium, a stem or two of the stately foxtail lily, bundles of lavender. One just never knows.
The lovely, dainty sweet peas are here. Yes, the ones I wasn’t going to grow. They will be offered in bundles mixed with other dainty flowers to round out the bouquet. Yes, I know that they are short lived in the vase, maybe 4 days, but honestly, how can one pass up on the beauty and the perfume? Makes me swoon. This is when you get to use all the little vases you were wondering why you were keeping. It is for the sweet peas.
I still have peonies to offer. I only recut and condition what I think I can sell on open flower shed days. I don’t want to say that I am parsimonious with them, but I don’t want their beauty to go to waste. I should have them to offer until mid July and they should last in your vase for at least five days.
More sunflowers are being planted for another week or two yet and the dahlias have all emerged and some have even had their first pinch. Ranunculus corms are being dug up, washed and dried to be stored for next early spring planting, and that includes the anemones as well. Crates are being emptied and on the next wicked hot couple of days they will all be disinfected for the next batch of tulips in October and so on and so forth. Everything is looking good I think and I am staying our of mischief. Well except I am going deep down the peony selection hole. I think I can fit another 12 plants in….then thinking about adding bearded iris to the mix to round out the offerings. I know, Call me crazy.
I leave you with these images to see what the possibilities are. I think it is worse than a candy shop.
As you can see, lots of very cool flowers to be had.
So until next week, may you dream of the floral bouquets that you can create. Allie