Backyard Bouquet #5

By July 23, 2013 – Posted in: Flowers on the Brain
1 comment

A bouquet of flowers from my backyard. Number 5 in a series

Something old, something new, something wild, something weird

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 back of a truck, and replanted with what seemed a rather small root ball, I don’t fault it for small blossoms. I’m just glad it’s alive.

I wish I knew the name of the daylily, but I don’t. However, I just noticed my neighbor has the same one, so I’m going to ask him. The pink hydrangea and the purple verbena from last week’s arrangement still looked good and were included in this week’s.

This week I continued two challenges I gave myself last week: to include one weed (uh, I mean, wildflower) and to include one non-flower item. The wildflower is the pink mallow. Oops, you can’t see it.

A bouquet of flowers from my backyard. Fifth in a series.

A bit of butterfly weed, a roadside daylily, penstemon seedpods, pink yarrow, pink mallow, golden coreopsis and pink spirea.

There, now you can see the mallow, and everything else. The non-flower element is a stem of seedpods of ‘Dark Towers’ penstemon. They are almost like beads on a stick.

I’m a member of the Garden Appreciation Society: The idea is to appreciate our own gardens more this year. To have a daily reminder of the bounty that our gardens provide. To catch a glint of beautiful color out of the corner of our eye while standing in the kitchen, or the bedroom or the living room. Every week, go out in the garden and cut a few flowers or interesting foliage and bring it in your house to display. Take a photo of it and link it at The Impatient Gardener.

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About the Author

Kathy Purdy is a colchicum evangelist, converting unsuspecting gardeners into colchicophiles. She would be delighted to speak to your group about colchicums or other gardening topics. Kathy’s been writing since 4th grade, gardening since high school, and blogging since 2002.

In the end, this may be the most important thing about frost: Frost slows us down. In spring, it tempers our eagerness. In fall, it brings closure and rest. In our gotta-go world–where every nanosecond seems to count–slowness can be a great gift. So rather than see Jack Frost as an adversary, you could choose to greet him as a friend.

~Philip Harnden in A Gardener’s Guide to Frost: Outwit the Weather and Extend the Spring and Fall Seasons

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Flâneur Gardener July 24, 2013, 2:09 am

Summer in a vase! 🙂

I’ve timed everything wrong this year, so right now the only flowers in my garden worth taking inside are the daylilies, and they look better where they are, since I spent more time outside than inside… However, tomorrow when I return to the city I’ll be bringing two posies of sweet pea flowers; one for a co-worker who is always a great help and deserves recognition, and one for my Mother-in-law who will be returning from holiday on Friday. I love being able to share my garden through giving away flowers – or jars of jam or bags of whatever else; it’s another enjoyment that a garden can give – the chance to give small surprise presents to people who matter or who deserves a pick-me-up.

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