Garden Pic Wednesday: Curly Parsley & Glad Bouquet!

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It's supposed to thunderstorm later this afternoon/evening, so I've been mowing the front yard. I did the back on Memorial Day. In fact, I spent 3 hours working outside. Not just mowing, but I had around 9 hybrid day lilies that I needed to move to sunnier locations on the south or east beds. They'll be happier. 
Day lilies prefer a good amount of sun.

Today, now that mowing is done, I want to work on moving some of the Bugleweed to a shady back bed. (I'm on lunch break right now.)

Today's Garden Pics: 
First: What I See When I Look Out Our Sliding Glass Door:
This beautiful, huge Curly Parsley with the Red Salvia behind it!
So pretty! I have an arrangement of 3 pots on the patio, all with herbs and either red Petunias or Red Salvia or both in them.
There are two types of Parsley: Flat & Curly. I like the Curly because it's showier! In the deep south, Parsley winters over.
I planted this one last spring. Parsley is a bi-annual, meaning it blooms and goes to seed every other year. Hopefully, I'll be able to save seed from this one!



Next: A Cut Flower Table Arrangement with Glads, Black-Eyed Susan's & Hydrangeas! 
This is a great time of year for gathering garden flowers for the table! The gladiolas bloom, then fall over, so as soon as the first flower opens I start picking them and putting them in a vase!
Black-eyed Susan's love to be cut, too! It promotes more blooming.



Sometimes Gladiolas and Carnations get an unfair association with funerals. But that's because they both have a cheap per stem price and Glads are tall spikes, making them perfect for a fan of tall flowers at the back of any large arrangement that needs to be showy in size, like for weddings or funerals.
I know this because I used to work in a flower shop as a designer. What you don't know is that each flower has a dollar price per stem that I had to count as I was making an arrangement. At the time I was working Glads, Carnations & Daisy-Mums were all $2 a stem as compared to a rose, which was $4 a stem or a Delphinium, which was $4 a stem or Hydrangea that was $8 to $12 a stem and so on.
As a summer garden flower, Gladiolas are easy to grow, come in a versatile range of colors and perform marvelously both in the garden and in the vase! They'll bloom all the way to top!
 The only trick is you need to remove them from the vase every other day or so, pull off the dead blossoms, cut the stem shorter, then re-insert in the vase.
Glads, when blooming tend to be top heavy and fall over, so I find it expedient to just cut them, but if you want to leave them outside, staking may be required.

For color, Glads come in a broad range of yellows, pinks, oranges, reds, violets, white and citron green; solid and bi-color.
You can order unique specialty colors from a garden catalog, but  do read up on Gladiola care for your growing zone before you invest.
If you live where the ground freezes, digging up and storing for winter may be required. 
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That's it for today! Stop back for Friday Finds! 
(None of the Mama Kat prompts inspired me this week.)

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