Challenge completed (well apart from writing every week, that is)

So much for writing every week. Life, especially building work, has taken over a bit, so I just haven't been able to find the time to write my blogs. But I have been doing my flowers. So hereby, a few days before Christmas a quick overview of the last two (!) months.

  

November 1: the last one from the allotment: Cobea Scandens, Euphorbia Oblongata, Verbena Bonariensis, Carnation, Ageratum, Chrysanthemum coronarium 'Primrose Gem' and whatever else I could find.

November 2: Hardly any flowers left in the garden so hence an arrangement with eucalyptus, rosemary, ornamental grass and the last of the Sedum Herbstfreude.

November 3: Okay, no flowers, but a bunch nevertheless. Various little pumpkins (which will be eaten later later this year), with some rosemary sprigs and James Wong's Popcorn Fiesta. The rosemary sprigs last a good week without water. 

December 1: A wreath for the front door made from willow, ivy and led lights, the latter of course should last me a few years. 

December 2: Another wreath, this one for indoors made from willow with pine cones, callicarpa berries and (obviously not from the garden) cinnamon sticks and ribbon. Ivy does last relatively well without water (which is great if you want to avoid the use of environmentally un-friendly floral foam). At this moment the only parts, both indoors and out, that have wilted a bit (but they are not brown or anything) are the sprigs with the flowers/berries. So do avoid those or just replace those after two weeks. My garden is never short of ivy!

December 3: I planted up these forced paperwhite daffodils in September and they have been flowering now for more than a week! Absolutely gorgeous. I am definitely not going to limit myself to five bulbs next year! They were flopping over a bit, so I cut some twigs from to keep them up and added some ivy at the bottom of the pot to hide the pot and the bare earth. 

December 4: I bought these led candles, as then they can be "lit" while completely surrounded by foliage and I used up my last bit of floral foam (ever?!?). I picked eucalyptus, holly, rosemary and lavender sprigs for this table piece. The whole house was smelling great while making it!

So this concludes my year of putting a bunch of home-grown flowers on the table (nearly) every week. In addition to flowers for myself, I also gave lots away as presents. 

It was a true challenge every now and again. But always a very enjoyable one. It made me think outside the box. I only went a little bit over budget, mainly because of the paperwhite daffodils. 

I'll continue with my bunches in 2015. So what remains now is to wish you

Happy holidays and a wonderful, happy, healthy and especially garden-wise a very enjoyable 2015!   

Who ate my chrysanthemums?

This year for the second time in my life I have tried to grow Chrysanthemums, the ones with the long stems that you usually see in the shops. Having seen pictures of some people having these outdoors in huge quantities, I thought I'd give it a try again. The last time I tried the plug plants didn't do much, but with a few more years of gardening experience and a larger greenhouse I thought I should give it another go. 

Second time lucky! I got some flowers this year of all 6 plants which I kept in the greenhouse. I realised a few weeks ago, that staking would have been a great idea too and probably if I had fed them a bit more and potted them on a bit more, I am sure they would have done even better. However, with just the one zigzag bunch and possibly more next year, I'm happy for now. 

That was until I found that in the last few days something has been eating the flowers! Not the leaves, just the flowers! The culprits were found quickly enough as they had previously ravished my mizuna (rocket type salad leaves) and those that escaped obviously moved on to greener pastures or in this case the more coloured pastures of my chrysanthemums!

Left with about half of the flowers that I had, I decided that the only thing to do was to add some other flowers to the bunch. Last week's Euphorbia oblongata was still doing fine and thus presented itself as the obvious candidate as it compliments rather than distracts from the vibrant chrysantemum blooms. 

So next year more plant food, more potting on and more vigilance with regards to caterpillars. For now though, I am enjoying my first bunch of home grown chrysanthemums. 

The last day of October

On the last day of October, the warmest Halloween since records began, and more importantly the end of the growing season, I am picking up where I left it exactly three weeks ago. Since then I had loads and loads of flowers: Cobae Scandens, sedum, cosmos, chrysanthemums, dahlia's, ageratum, roses and many more. As I may have mentioned before, we're doing a house extension which meant that in the last two weeks I spent most of my time painting and wallpapering, and it is by no means finished ... 

I did do some bunches of flowers though. It's just that I didn't get around to write about them. In between the painting I have also tried to sow some flowers for next year and I am pleased to say that a few of them, the sweet peas and the cornflowers in particular, have germinated and are doing well. 

So below a few pictures from the last few weeks as well as today's vase with cosmos, ageratum, Euphorbia oblongata and sunflowers. This year I spent a lot of time deadheading and it has paid off. The sunflowers have really responded well to this, to my surprise, and six plants have given me continuous flowers for three months! They have gotten smaller over time but are as charming as they have ever been. 

 Cosmos

 Cosmos, dahlia's from seeds (the pink/purple ones), Dahlia Karma Choc

Rose Queen of Sweden, Chrysantemums (Korean hybrid), Dianthus 'Green Trick', and white Snapdragons (Antirrhinums).

Whereas the sunflowers started off to be double or triple the size of the cosmos in August, they are now the same size and as cute as ever. 

A pretend bunch of flowers or not?

Some of my family members do think that although botanically some flowers are flowers, they aren't really. So when last week the beautiful Cobaea scandens received that judgement, it inspired me to this week's bunch. The accused are Dianthus barbatus 'Green Trick', Euphorbia oblongata and some Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-mist) and papaver somniferum seedheads (so basically spent flowers). I love the result and I think it's a bunch of great flowers with intriguing shapes and colour, but of course it may not convince the non-believers in my household! 

In addition to this bunch, I decided to do another one with Ageratum houstonianum 'Timeless Mixed', which I have sown for the first time this year.  It doesn't seem to be stopped by setting seeds here and there, so after the first flush of flowers it is producing an abundant second one. I combined it with some rosemary as foliage. 

Unfortunately blues are really difficult to photograph, and the pictures below make the blue ones look more cyan than they really are. In reality they are blue-purple, with some whites and pinks, as the one in the picture below.

In addition to the two bunches of flowers mentioned above, I also need to tell you about last week's. Last week was the first week that I didn't write a blog while I wasn't away. I did do a bunch of flowers on Monday and simply didn't manage to write it up as it is so crazily busy with the extension work among other things. So below are a few pictures of the vase that graced the bar in the last couple of days with some of my other Autumn favourites: sunflowers, Dahlia 'Karma Choc', Cosmos (bipinnatus 'Purity', I think) and the wonderful and much debated Cobaea scandens. 

I went to the allotment ...

... And harvested the last of the potatoes, deadheaded the dahlias and picked some flowers. Then I went home and seared the stems of the Queen of Sweden roses in boiling water and arranged them in a vase with the cosmos, ageratum, the one white scabious and the only one of the Abyssinian Gladioli that has come up.

The rest of the day I spent armchair gardening, poring over seed and gardening catalogues planning and dreaming about next year's garden. What a lovely day!

A reason not to be very tidy

I thought I'd show you a patch on my allotment first. 

Quite a mess, right? It's so messy you can hardly see what is in the picture. This was my spring flower patch and now is full with seedheads which is why I haven't touched it yet. No doubt marigold, love-in-a-mist and cornflower seedlings will soon emerge after I clear this bed of both the old flowers and the weeds which I hope to do in the coming week or so. Today however I also took the opportunity to collect some of the seeds, some of which I'll sow in the next week (along with some bought packets) and some of which I'll sow in Spring. 

I also collected some ageratum seeds. This annual is still flowering wonderfully well in a range of colours (blue/purple/mauve/white/pink) and has already produced quite a bit of seeds. As I am not interested in a specific colour collecting my own seeds makes absolute sense.

Of course I didn't just collect seeds on the allotment, but also flowers. For one vase I picked ageratum, cleome, cosmos and dahlia's. I also picked some Cobaea scandens Alba and combined it with dahlia Karma Choc and rosemary. 

I love the results, have a look below!

Autumn is coming

The wind has been blowing all day today. The squirrels are busy clearing the walnuts from the tree, burying them in our garden and leaving the rejected ones to crunch under our feet. Summer is definitely nearing its end and autumn is coming. 

On the allotment the cosmos and dahlias are flowering abundantly as they are supposed to feeling the onset of Autumn. The sunflowers are producing lots of small flowers as well. 

For a friend I made an "all-of-the allotment-flowers" bunch, adding some Queen of Sweden roses as well as some other odd flowers to the dahlia's and the cosmos.

At home I made a small posy from Chrysanthemum coronarium 'Primrose Gem' and rose Graham Thomas. Not sure how either will do in a vase, but we'll see. I also added one aquilegia flower, which I found to my surprise in a weedy border. (In the picture you can only see the back of it)   Some time last year I did put in some granny's bonnets and this one has obviously barely survived until now and has gotten a bit confused about the seasons in the process!

  

Ps I didn't manage the flowers on Friday, as there was simply too much going on, but I hope to do my next bunch again this Friday. No promises though!

Even Superwoman needs flowers in the house regularly

Today was one of these days, just too much to do. Most of things were of course self-inflicted like making plum chutney and enjoying time with friends, but as a consequence everything got squeezed and I still haven't got done the laundry! But I did do my flowers and I am now writing my blog. 

Like everything else, I also did my flowers in a rush. I had an idea, combining some beautiful Helenium's with Hydrangea Annabelle, but arranging them in a vase wasn't as straight forward as I had hoped. I picked just the one stem of the Helenium and three stems of the Hydrangea's which proved to be not enough for the vase. So I added some goldenrods (Solidago) and rosemary. 

I am glad I didn't postpone doing my flowers though as today I had a few moments already admiring their beauty, giving just a few moments of peace and serenity amidst the chaos. 

Indeed, even superwoman needs a few flowers in the house to help her relax. I'll tell her next time I see her. 

Small is beautiful

Life can be busy. Summer holidays, extension building work, family visits and visiting, weeds, a laden Victoria plum tree and oh yes, flowers! So yesterday I did pick three little bunches, but I simply didn't time and energy to write about them. 

I do not expect any of them to stand very long, but I'm sure that I'll be able to enjoy them until we leave. There will be no blog next week as we're away, but then early September not only will I have more time again for the garden and the flowers, I also need to prepare for winter and next year with bulbs and autumn sowings. So there'll be plenty to do and write about. 

For now, just the pictures and descriptions of my three little bunches. Sometimes a small vase is much more practical than a large one (no point in having a large vase on the table while eating, for example) and often it's just as beautiful.  I hope you agree with me on this occasion!

Wonderfully fragrant Munstead Wood roses with Achillea ptarmica 'Double Diamond and Dianthus 'Green Trick'. 

I bought Dianthus 'Green Trick' last year. It is a is a non-flowering form of sweet William. The plants survived the winter with the old flowers producing new small plants. They haven't regained their vigour yet. Next year, I'd better take some cuttings mid-summer. 

From seed: Dahlia Cactcus mixed
My first ever flower of Cobaea scandens, Rose Queen of Sweden, Dahlia Kharma Choc and Sweet Williams

Cinderella sunflowers

For a few weeks now I have some lovely small sunflowers (Helianthus) growing on the allotment. You may have seen them appearing in a few bunches already, but I thought this week they should get the attention they deserve. I love sunflowers, but every year I manage to neglect them: half eaten by slugs, planted out way too late and not tied in properly.  A bit like Cinderella: neglected and forgotten until she becomes the star of the party. 



As for growing sunflowers,  you can sow in pots, ignore any advice that says you can't. 
The trick is to pinch it out quite early on.  In this way you'll get bushier plants that produce lots of little sunflowers. Don't worry if pinching out means taking off half of the plant. Sunflowers grow quite a bit of stem between sets of leaves and you need to take it back to the first or second set. Of course if you want to grow a tall one with one big flower, don't pinch it out! Sunflowers shed their pollen, if you haven't grown a pollen free variety. So be aware where you place your vase.




















Having left the sunflowers for so long, many were already past their best and I only found three today that I felt were good enough in my bunch of flowers. I am afraid that I can't tell you which variety it is as the label seems to have mysteriously disappeared. 

I combined it with some dahlia's, white nicotiana and cosmos. Cosmos is quickly becoming one of my favourite cutflowers. I've been picking from two white Cosmos bipinnatus "Purity" plants for a few weeks now. The good thing about cosmos is that also the buds will open in a vase, as opposed to dahlia's whose buds will never open in a vase. Cosmos' vase life is thus quite long, especially if you take out the faded flowers every few days.