Backyard Bouquet #6

– Posted in: Flowers on the Brain
4 comments

A backyard bouquet filled with plants from my garden.

Clockwise, starting at bottom: inula sp., spirea, daisy, seed bract, yarrow, catmint, daisy fleabane, hosta flower, butterfly weed, nodding onion, and tall border phlox in the middle.

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 the Secret Garden. I am sure it is some kind of scrub tree that shows up in the transition from field to forest, but I haven’t figured it out yet. (Note: I removed all the leaves so the bracts would show up better.) Spireas and hydrangeas get my vote as two shrubs that can provide a lot of blooms for bouquets, and they are easy to grow.

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.

About the Author

Kathy Purdy is a colchicum evangelist, converting unsuspecting gardeners into colchicophiles. She gardens in rural upstate NY, which used to be USDA Hardiness Zone 4 but is now Zone 5. Kathy’s been writing since 4th grade, gardening since high school, and blogging since 2002. Find her on Instagram as kopurdy.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

~Albert Camus in Albert Camus quotations

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April Jacobs August 3, 2013, 9:10 am

Wow! This is a nice bouquet, Kathy. Great choice of flowers. I also love making my own flower bouquets. I would love to try this. Thanks a lot!

AprilšŸ˜€

Donna@Gardens Eye View July 31, 2013, 4:48 pm

Kathy I love this idea…I don’t usually do this but said I would try more to cut flowers and bring them in…i will try to get a few this summer…

Kathy Purdy July 30, 2013, 8:48 am

Have you considered a wall vase? They aren’t common but they can be found. I bought one at Gardenscape, the Rochester Home and Garden Show. I think I’ve seen them offered mailorder, too, in home decor type catalogs and websites.

commonweeder July 30, 2013, 7:24 am

I tend not to make bouquets for the house because our cat always knocks them down, but this post has really inspired me to make a bedroom bouquet. The cat is not allowed in the bedroom; he tends to dance on our heads at 4 am. Thank you.