flower_arrangements

It's true. You can neaten your garden and beautify your home at the same time. The peachy gladiolus had fallen face down in the dirt. Once rinsed off, the flower spike was still pretty. I surrounded it with stems of 'Dark Towers' penstemon. The seedheads from this plant are interesting maroon beads, but they are [...]

Here's my bouquet of the week, picked on Saturday. For my "something wild" I have daisy fleabane and the inula, which just showed up in the chicken yard, though some people grow it as a garden plant. The "something weird" also counts as "something wild": the chartreuse seed bracts from a tree growing wild in [...]

For this week's backyard bouquet I kept it simple. No more one-of-everything-in-the-garden. I just went with what I had a lot of. The white Incrediball hydrangea is really putting out blossoms, although they are not as big as they have been in the past. Since this shrub was dug up this spring, thrown in the [...]

Flower arranging, I've discovered, is one of those things that can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. Before reading Slow Flowers by Debra Prinzing (read my review), I had read other books and articles on flower arranging in the past, and I always got hung up on the details. [...]

Many gardeners don't cut flowers from their own gardens. I know some feel it will ruin the look or design of their garden to have pieces missing from it, but I think a lot of gardeners just haven't given themselves permission. Or, like me, after they cut the stems they wonder, "Now what?" I have [...]

Debra Prinzing's latest book, Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm, started as a challenge to herself to use only seasonal, locally grown floral elements in her weekly bouquets. (From my perspective that's two challenges in one, because with the many demands on my time, putting together a [...]

My impulsively purchased orchid still looks fantastic, and while one forced hyacinth is past its prime, another is getting ready to take its place. This "Christmas" cactus was also an impulse purchase a couple of years ago. It blooms quite a while after my other two and thus extends the indoor winter bloom season.I also [...]

A long winter is not for sissies. If you are a veteran of many northern winters, you probably already practice most of the tips I'm going to share below. But if you are new to the tribe of hardy plants and hardy souls, here are some ways to beat cabin fever. 1Light TherapyIn the land [...]

There is a nice blanket of snow on the ground and none on the roads. That's the way we like it in cold climate country. We know we are not going to see blooms when snow covers the ground so we plan for ways to have blooms in the house. I've got some hyacinths forcing [...]