Choice Morsels

This Weeks First Bouquet: This is Glads, Hydrangea, Gardenias plus stems of Greek Oregano and Chocolate mint as well. I like to pick glads as soon as they bloom, because they tend to fall over from their own weight. The t rick with glads is they bloom bottom up, so I need to take apart, snip and rearrange the bouquet every couple days. I like remaking the bouquet, though. Flowers aren't the only garden bounty: from my raised veggie garden I've started getting beans, one zucchini so far and tomatoes that should be turning soon! Finally...weeded This photo is the front corner bed between my driveway & sidewalk--I'm finally mastering the crab-grass weed spots. I worked on the area along the blocks, removing young crab-grass, then laying down newspaper on the exposed soil and topping with mower mulch. Last season, I didn't keep up with the weeds very well and the crabgrass not only got well established in the front end of this bed, but went to seed--that is a mistake I...

  I have 2 Garden Pics for you today: First photo up is another one of the 10 new day lilies I ordered and planted last fall. This one is called "Prairie Fire." It's a strong maroonish-red with a bright yellow throat and the first of the 10 to bloom. At this time, only 2 haven't bloomed yet: the white and one called "Midnight." Day lilies have a broad blooming season, though. Some re-bloom, some blooming only once. Prairie Fire blooms once it appears. However the new yellow and "Grape" seem to be re-bloomers. Day lilies are an excellent flower in the flower bed for care-free areas you want to naturalize or in borders or to use as a medium-high filler in a bed with tall flowers at the back and shorter in front. If you like spring daffodils, they make a good companion planting partner with day lilies, since they come up first, then die back before the day lilies appear. So plant your daffodil bulbs among your day lilies! Next pi...

I have 2 garden pictures for you today plus instructions on how to do your own flower arrangement! First up: a photo of my very tall Hardy Hibiscus! Hardy Hibiscus comes in red, pink and white. It's a very good investment for the garden because it comes back from the root every year as tall, leafy stems that bloom all summer. Multiple stems. Being so tall, Hardy Hibiscus is a good background garden plant, though it looks best against a structure, a fence or needs staking to keep it upright. It also tends to re-seed itself readily, however, here in the deep south, mine don't spread themselves around. They just come up from the same ol' root every year. However, my Mother leaves in Indiana and hers spread themselves by seed everywhere. They will thrive in any soil and prefer full to partial sun, that is more sun then shade. To avoid this you just have to dead-head the finished blossoms. Now my Hibiscus in this photo below are unusually tall---7 to 7 1/2 feet at ...

Today's Garden photo is one of my garden favorites: agapanthus or Lilly of the Nile. I like it's because it's a blue flower, considering true blue flowers are a minority in the flower world. Mine are light blue. They do come darker to nearly purple blue and also come in white. It has a circular head full of these small flowers that open a few at time over several days. No, they don't bloom all at once. I grow mine in a pot, but they are fine in the ground. They're a common landscaping feature here in Florida. They bloom once, but their grassy greenery remains as nice texture in the garden till frost, which is why they're so popular in landscaping. They're a fine cutting flower for vases,  though you will need to clean up dead blossoms at they fall off. When I change the vase water, I snip off expired blossoms, which gives the head a interesting pin-cushion look that's nice texture in a vase. That's a little flower-arranging secret: it's not...

"Can I get blue roses?" was probably the most often asked question at the flower shop where I worked for 17 years as a floral designer. And the answer is, "No."  Fresh, real roses do not come in blue. Even those with names like, "Bluebird," are lavenderish and not blue. If you want roses in blue you're going to have to pay a visit to your local silk flower retailer. Below are two photos of real roses classed as "Lavender" colored from a florist shop web page. You can see "lavender" in roses varies from more pinkish to more lavenderish. Roses classed as "purple," generally run to the maroon side as a natural color. (If you see roses that actually look purple the color has probably been artificially applied someway---and I don't recommend painting---it's stinky and only effects the outer surface.) The pinker rose to the left called "Ocean Song Lavender" and the one on the right was unnamed, but h...