Category Archives: cut flowers

color in the garden, cut flowers, deer resistant bulbs, flowers, fragrant plants

Fragrant Plants for the Garden

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Stargazer_lilyRecently I received a bouquet of Stargazer lilies. The spectacular flowers on each stem open in succession and the display will last for nearly two weeks if I take care of them changing the water regularly and re-cutting the stems.

Wish the lilies in my own garden would hurry up and open. Mine are always a little behind those in warmer spots.  When they do open later in the month they will scent the garden with an unforgettable fragrance. Some flowers are memorable for their beautiful color, some for the hummingbirds they attract and some have it all-vibrant hues, nectar and fragrance. I love them all. Perhaps you want to add a few new ones to your own garden. Try one of these.

Lilies are one of the easiest of bulbs to grow. Stargazers are the most stunning and perhaps the most celebrated of lily varieties. Curious about their origin I discovered a little intrigue among horticultural historians. Seems they don't like seeing history revised. The bottom line is this lily was not first bred in 1974 by Mr. Leslie Woodruff of California but rather by Robert Griesbach of Washington and named in his friends honor. When you have an established clump of Stargazer lilies it doesn't matter who first bred them.

The stems of the Stargazer can reach 3- 6 ft tall and have in excess of 40 flowers each when planted in full sun in loamy or sandy soil and the blooms will last for a month or so. You can still grow beautiful lilies in as little as 6 hours of sun per day so don't be discouraged if you don't have a spot that receives full sun all day long. The sunlight can even be accrued over the course of the day so if your garden get some morning sun then again later in the day it all adds up.

If you are looking for a fragrant vine other than pink jasmine I have two suggestions. The first is Evergreen clematis_armandii3Clematis ( clematis armandii ) Earlier this spring you couldn't miss their fragrance if you were anywhere near a blooming one. Covered with an abundance of highly-scented, star-like flowers in brilliant white clusters, this showy evergreen vine grows fast in partial sun. This vine is perfect as a patio, trellis or arbor cover and makes a great privacy screen. Give this vine support as it grows to 25 feet long and can become quite heavy. If you live among deer, it's a great choice for a fragrant vine.

Fragrant climbing roses trained on an arbor or fence are classic landscape design choices. One of my favorites for gardens I design is Climbing Iceberg because they are disease resistant and have few thorns. It's hard to find a better behaved rose that gives so much in return with no Iceberg_roseeffort on your part. They start blooming early with a lovely sweet rose fragrance and continue until frost. Two climbers planted on each side of a window make a stunning display. It's one of my favorite white roses of all time and grows in sun or partial shade.

If you think violas are only for the winter garden, think again. Viola Etain is a reliable perennial that blooms heavily spring through fall . Soft primrose yellow petals edged in lavender are sweetly scented and bloom easily in sun or bright shade and in containers. If you cut the plants back to 3" tall once in awhile to rejuvenate and top dress with compost they will reward you with 9 months of fragrance and become one of your favorite violas, too.

There are so many fragrant flowers that make great additions to the garden. Freesia, hyacinth and narcissus bulbs are good bets for early fragrance. Then come the nemesia in every color imaginable. Phlox, lilacs, tuberose, star jasmine, stock, citrus blossoms, gardenia, lily-of-the-valley, daphne, carnations– the possibilities are endless. If you have a particular spot you'd like a suggestion for a fragrant plant, email me and I'd be happy to help.

Fragrance in the garden is nature's way of smiling.
 

cool season flowers, cut flowers, edibles, vegetables, winter color

Flowers, Edibles and Camellias

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Every year the stirrings of early spring excite me. There's even a name for it – spring fever. There are lots of early season plants that can go in right now or you can spend some time planning for later additions to your garden. Both are great ways to kick-start this gardening season.

An article in this month's Sunset magazine talks about the "5- Mile Bouquet". How about a 50-foot bouquet using flowers from your own garden? There are flowers we can grow in every season around here. Who wants to put flowers doused in chemicals and shipped halfway across the world on the table? Plan to use your entire property as a cutting garden. You can have fresh little bouquets year round from your own backyard.

Winter flowering, fragrant sweet peas could be in your vase right now or bright orange and gold calendula. Stock blooms during the winter along with early narcissus. Both are very fragrant. Deer-resistant Sweet Violets are blooming now and smell wonderful in a tiny vase by the kitchen window. Anemone and snapdragons make good cut flowers and will be blooming soon. It's easy to plan ahead for a spring or summer bouquet because there are so many choices but make sure you have aster, scabiosa and gaillardia for those fall arrangements.

This year plan the edible garden around what grows best for you. It's not always cost effective to devote space in your vegetable plot for something that peaks at the same time as it's plentiful at the local farmers market. What makes sense for your taste, time and garden space? Easy to grow edibles like strawberries, blueberries, herbs, lettuces, arugula and peas are delicious freshly picked and don't take up too much room in the garden.

There are ways to make your whole landscaping edible. Fruits, vegetables and herbs can be intermingled with the ornamental shrubs and flowers in the yard. Plant an apple where a crape myrtle was going to go or an artichoke instead of a New Zealand flax. A border of parsley or chives around the flower bed would look and taste great. Or maybe French pole beans to grow up a bamboo arbor you tied together yourself. Take advantage of your entire property to incorporate your favorite edibles.

Now is a good time to pick out a camellia for that morning sun or shady spot that needs a shrub with year round good looks. Looking at pictures of camellia flowers in a catalog is nice but seeing them in person is even better. What better way to choose the perfect one? If you're partial to vivid flowers, Nuccio's Bella Rossa is right up your alley. An abundance of huge formal, crimson red blooms open slowly over a long period for an especially long bloom season. This brilliant camellia is believed to bring wealth if planted at the entrance to your home as are other red flowering plants.

A great camellia to espalier on a trellis is a sasanqua variety called Fairy Blush. Deep pink buds open to apple blossom tinted blooms with a sweet fragrance. Growing to a compact 4-5 feet this plant is perfect for a small courtyard or patio.

Then there's the soft blush-pink, semi-double flowers of Magnoliaeflora that can be the prized plant of the winter garden. It's deer resistant and the showy flowers are good for cutting. It would make a great privacy screen and looks natural in the woodland garden.

 requiring a regular watering schedule during the first growing season to establish a deep, extensive root system. Provide well drained soil, rich in organic matter. Feed with an acid fertilizer after bloom. Keep roots cool with a thick layer of mulch and prune them in spring after flowering.
 

cool season flowers, cut flowers, flowers, vegetables

Sweet Peas & Cool Season Veggies

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Fall is in the air – sort of. The sun is setting earlier each day but our days are still beautiful. The autumnal equinox on September 23rd marks the beginning of fall when day and night are of approximately equal length. Gardeners living in Minnesota and Maine are thinking about "battening down the hatches" for winter already. Us, we’re just starting our fall planting season. There are so many possibilities for fall and winter edibles as well as colorful flowers, berries and foliage. For the biggest show there’s no better time to plant than early fall.  Let the fun begin.

While most of the summer annuals and perennials will bloom until at least October, there are cool season varieties that come into their own as our nights cool and last through the winter.  Try  colorful combinations of snapdragon, pansies, violas, sweet alyssum, calendula, chrysanthemum paludosum, forget-me-not, Iceland and shirley poppies, ornamental kale and cabbage, primrose, stock or sweet peas.

Who doesn’t  love old-fashioned sweet peas? A small bouquet will perfume a room with a delicious scent. They remind me of my Aunt Ruth who grew them every year and let me pick a bunch each spring whenever I went to visit. There are many new varieties and colors these days but back then her sweet pea vines were covered with the classic mixed colors of violet, blue, pink, peach and white.

Sweet peas have been around for a long time and many different countries claim that they originated there. One story is that a monk, Father Cupani, first harvested them in the wild on an island off Sicily in 1695` and sent the seeds to the Netherlands. In the 1800’s, an Scottish nurseryman named Harry Eckford began hybridizing and introducing larger varieties in a wider range of colors where they became quite a sensation. The most famous and perhaps the most important use of this flower was the extensive genetics studies performed by Gregor Mendel. Since they self-pollinate, their characteristics such as height, color and petal form could easily be tracked. But whether they came from Ceylon- the modern day Sri Lanka, China or Sicily, heirloom sweet peas are as exquisite in the garden and they are in the vase.

I like to plant early blooming types of sweet peas in October or early November. These varieties flower in the shorter days of late winter. Winter Elegance and Early Multiflora are common early flowering types. Also plant some of the more fragrant spring flowering heirlooms and Spencer’s at the same time to extend your harvest time. My very favorite sweet pea with long stems for cutting and an intense fragrance is called April in Paris. Large ruffled blossoms are a soft primrose cream, tinted at the edges in dark lilac that deepens and increases with age. You can’t go wrong no matter what color or style sweet pea you choose. They are all beautiful.

Now that the weather has cooled, plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, bok choy, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6" of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients. You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground.

This is also the time to start perennial flowers seeds so that they’ll  be mature enough to bloom next year. Happy Fall.
 

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Cut Flowers on a Shoestring

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It’s rewarding to grow your own fruit and vegetables, but more and more of us also want to grow flowers that can be cut and , too. Growers are taking notice of this trend and there are more cut flower varieties available today than ever before. Now you can create your own landscaping masterpiece, a Monet’s garden, with a little planning and some jumbo packs. Here are some new and old favorites to try this year.

Ageratum Red Sea. Showy, burgundy-red flower clusters bloom summer to fall on long stems. Grow in full sun to part shade. This beautiful cut flower reaches 30" tall by 15-18" wide. Ageratum Blue Horizon is another great variety.

Celosia Spiky Purple. Deep purple flowers are crowded onto terminal spikes, opening slowly from the base. Blooms all summer long in full sun. 12-16" tall. Spiky Pink is a beauty, too.

Calendula Pink Surprise. Ruffled 1" flowers are orange at first and then take on a tinge of pink as they age. This plant grows 18" tall in full or part sun.  Great in containers or the flower bed as well as a cut flower. Often reseeds itself.

Larkspur Giant Imperial mix. If you want long spikes of soft lavender, blue and pink in your flower arrangements, grow larkspur. Flower stems are long and dense on 36-48" tall plants. Grow in full sun. Also good for drying.

Crespedia Billy Buttons or Drumstick Plant. This offbeat Australian daisy sends up 2 ft tall stalks topped by globes of bright yellow flowers. Bloom may occur at anytime of the year. Flowers are good fresh or dried in arrangements. Self sows freely.

Bachelor Buttons or Cornflower. The Centauria family of plants also includes Dusty Miller among other common plants. Blue Boy has double blooms in a stunning shade of deep blue. Great plants for the cutting garden or flower border, this wild flower is well suited for cutting, drying and pressing. Self sows. Did you know this plant’s common name, cornflower, refers to the fact that it was once typically found growing amid corn in Europe? Other plants named for their association with grain fields are corn cockle ( agrostemma ), corn poppy and corn marigold.

Aster Matsumoto. The Matsumoto series is known for disease resistance and superior cut flower quality. Semi-double blooms are borne on long, strong stems that are very long lasting in the vase.  Blooming begins in mid-summer and doesn’t quit until late fall. And the best part is, the more flowers you cut, the quicker new buds arise. The large, yellow center is surrounded by layers of bright purple, pink or white petals and is eye-catching even from across the garden. They thrive in any sunny garden spot or container. 24" tall.

Gomphrena Las Vegas mix. Draw hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden with this heat tolerant cut flower. The pink, purple, and white clover-like flowers may also be dried quickly and easily, retaining color and shape for winter arrangements. Plant this 16-20" tall plant in a container for a long-lasting living bouquet.

Statice Supreme Blue. A hardy, low maintenance annual, this deep blue cut flower is drought, heat and pest resistant. They even thrive in poor soil conditions and bloom continuously from late spring until first frost. Cut statice just after they have begun to open for the most vibrant, lasting color. Ideal for dried arrangementslike celosia and gomphrena.

These are just some of the affordable and easy to grow cut flowers available. Think of all the bouquets you’ll be able to  make this year from your own garden grown flowers.

 

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Bouquets from Your own Garden

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A gardener’s life:  water, prune, plant, rake, weed, stake. Repeat as necessary. Then smell the roses, harvest the vegetables and It’s great to be out in the garden among your beautiful plants. Reward yourself and bring the outside in.

Have you ever seen the spectacular arrangements made weekly for the mansion at Filoli Gardens in Woodside? They are truly breathtaking, composed of whatever plants and flowers happen to catch the eye of the harvester. You can have this too for your own dining room table, kitchen, bedroom or bath.

Until about 100 years ago, one of the most important areas of any large garden was the cutting garden, where flowers were harvested like a crop and taken inside for display. Today our lifestyles and tastes are reflected in bouquets that are more casual. The bouquets you make from garden grown flowers, interesting foliage branches, grasses, vines and even herbs always seem to have more personality and cottage garden softness than ones bought from the store.

While just about any plant material that strikes your fancy will work in a mixed bouquet there are four types of plant forms that naturally look good together:  Spires for height and architectural properties ( liatris, snapdragon,gladiola, salvia, Bells-of-Ireland),  Round for focus ( roses, dahlias, long-stemmed marigolds, peonies), lacy for fillers ( ferns, baby’s breath, dill ) , foliage ( abelia, breath of heaven, Calif. bay ), and ornamental grasses.

Here are some unsung beauties to grow and add to your arrangements.
* Love-lies-bleeding ( Amaranthus caudatus ) Long, to 18", pendulous ropes of red flower clusters. Handsome mixed with bold companions like zinnias and sunflowers. Good dried flower.
* Bells-of-Ireland ( Moluccela laevis ) Showy, apple-green flower spikes, long lasting in either fresh or dried arrangements.
* Transvaal daisy ( Gebera jamesonii) Perennial, long-stemmed varieties bloom nearly year round with peaks in early summer and late fall. Prized cut flower. Split stem end, dip in boiling water and stand in deep water with sugar for long vase life.
* Lisianthus. Perennial grown as an annual. Flowers resemble roses in shade of purplish-blue, pink, and white. Blooms all summer on strong stalks.
*Pink muhly grass ( Muhlenbergia capillaris) airy plumes of feathery, deep rosy-pink flowers on tall stems. Drought tolerant.

There are so many plants to use in bouquets. Don’t forget grapes and other vines, herbs, woody trees branches and shrub foliage look great, too

The best time to cut is early in the morning. Cut non-woody stems on a slant for maximum water absorption. Cut woody stems straight across and smash the ends. Plunge immediately in a bucket of tepid water. Indoors, fill the kitchen sink with cool water and recut each stem under water so an air bubble doesn’t keep the water from being absorbed.

Then pull off any foliage or flowers that will be below the water level in the vase. Fill the vase with lukewarm water. You can add cut flower food but I find that changing the water every two days and making sure no foliage is under water works just as well.

If a plant isn’t working our or is spent in your arrangement just remove it. The main thing is to have a garden that you love both inside and out.
 

cut flowers, flowers, fragrant plants

Caring for your Easter Lily

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Every year I wait patiently for my Easter lilies to come up in the garden. The shoots are now about 6" tall but they are a long way from blooming and I’m looking forward to those huge, fragrant, white trumpet-shaped flowers. Still I pick up a few new blooming plants each year to enjoy now and celebrate Easter. It’s a tradition that marks spring along with decorating eggs, chocolate bunnies and Easter baskets.

Easter lilies that are blooming at his time of year have been forced under controlled conditions to flower in time for Easter. This is a very tricky process since Easter falls on a different day each year dependent upon celestial bodies. Falling on the first Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox, Easter can be any day between March 22 and April 25. Crop scheduling and timing is critical. The flowers must bloom exactly when they’re suppose to with no margin for error.

Did you know that over 95% of all the bulbs grown for the Easter lily market are produced by just 10 farms in a narrow coastal region straddling the California-Oregon border? Known as the Easter Lily Capitol of the World, the area offers a climate of year-round mild temperatures, deep, rich alluvial soils and abundant rainfall which produces a consistent high quality bulb crop.

The Easter lily or Lilium longiforum, is native to the southern islands of Japan where it was grown and exported to the US until WW ll. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 the Japanese source of bulbs was abruptly cut off. As a result, the value of lily bulbs sky-rocketed and many who were growing lilies as a hobby here decided to go into business. The Easter lily bulbs at the time were called ‘White Gold’ and growers everywhere attempted to cash in on the crop. By 1945, there were about 1,200 growers producing bulbs up and down the Pacific coast from Vancouver to Long Beach. But producing quality, consistent lily bulbs proved to be quite demanding with specific climatic requirements. Over the years, the number of bulb producers dwindled to just the 10 current farms near the Oregon border. Even after the Japanese started to ship bulbs again after the war, they have never been able to come close to the quality of our US grown bulbs.

Here’s how to make your Easter lily keep on giving. For the longest possible period of enjoyment, remove the yellow anthers from the flowers before the pollen starts to shed. This gives longer flower life and prevents the pollen from staining the white flowers. Place the plants in bright indirect daylight, not direct sunlight, and water when the soil surface feels dry to the touch. Do not let the plant sit in water.

After blooming, plant your lily outside in sun or part shade after letting it acclimate to brighter conditions for a week or so before transplanting. Plant in a well-drained garden bed that has been amended with lots of organic matter like compost and mulch the surface with more compost. As the original plants begin to die back, cut the stems back to the soil surface. New growth will soon emerge but go dormant again during the winter.  Next year the will bloom naturally in the summertime.

Easter lilies are a great addition to the flower border.  Easy to grow, fragrant and hardy.