If there’s one thing that I enjoy more than looking at the flowers in my garden, it’s looking at a bouquet of flowers I’ve created from flowers cut from my garden. The bouquets vary from one season to the next, of course, and sometimes even one week to the next as the progression of blooms marches through the gardening season.
Right now, in mid-May, my garden is full of cuttable treasures. I have six different kinds of roses, mostly pink and mostly the “low maintenance” variety. Although I love the more traditional roses as much as anyone, I’m just not willing to give them the chemical support that they so often need. In my garden, they only get the bare necessities of sunshine and water.
I have a lot of pink things in my garden right now. Pink yarrow, which began to bloom in earnest about a week ago, looks gorgeous alongside the roses and dark reddish-pink snapdragons. The pink blooms of spirea look especially pretty against their bright yellow / green leaves.
Both catnip and pincushion flower have both offered up boucoups of blossoms this spring and have stems long enough to make them a welcomed addition to a bouquet. The added advantage to cutting these blossoms is that if you cut enough, the plants will generally bloom again later in the season.
Daisy-like blooms come from Shasta daisy, yellow coreopsis and Echinacea, which I have both in white and a pale pink form.
The best time to cut flowers is early in the morning when they are rested and full of moisture from the night. Once the sun comes up, they will begin to lose moisture. I try to put the cut stems into water as soon as possible.
AS this cutting season fades, I look toward the next round of flowers, which includes favorite perennials such as summer phlox, bee balm, black-eyed Susans, hydrangeas and Japanese aster, as well as annuals such as apricot cosmos and lime green zinnias. Come on by – I’ll pick you a bouquet. Can’t wait!
Many of these flowers are my favorites too, and you’ve given me some ideas for new ones to try as well. Thanks!