These photos are for Charles. I told him that I will post photos on Saturday and didn't get to it till today. My camera had lost the date setting so I don't know exactly which Saturdays I took these photos. Some time in late September to early October.
At the end of the day, I feel so drained and weak. This terrible clenching headache doesn't help either. Even with all the worries in me and gloomy news all around, I am going to stay positive and grateful.
It has been an exciting summer as far as growing flowers go. The sunflower seed packets that Shannon and I bought this spring brought me lots of Sunflowers. This red sunflower being most productive and also attractive to goldfinch. I think I picked up Coreopsis from Thistle Rock Nursery stand this spring. Those dainty blossoms really contrasts well with sun flowers in size and color. [July 11, 09]
First blooms of Lisianthus, Celosia, Liatris, Irish bell, obedient flowers accompanied by zinnia and white yarrow flowers. The flowers are greeting shoppers at Cakes for Cause booth at the farmer's market. [July 25, 09]
Yellow to orange flowers: perennial sunflower, cosmos, yellow yarrow, zinnia and dahlia. [August 1, 09]
Irish bells really going strong this week. Garlic chives are blooming and society garlic is blooming again (I love this one. Got it from Wendy this spring). Purple salvia, obedient flowers, white snapdragon, geranium leaf and of course zinnia flowers accompanied by yummy baked good neighbors at the farmer's market stand. [August 15, 2009]
I am not sure what I would do once fall arrives and summer flowers in my garden start to fade away. I wonder if I could start some quick annual flowers that like cool weather. As far as perennial goes, I have a few mums that I could temporarily pot up and bring it on some Saturdays. I could gather some nice fall color branches or berries too. I can't believe I am already thinking about fall. Time flies.
Yeon
Cosmos, sweet pea and pink snap dragon flowers from my garden. Airy coral bells are from Jen's garden.
Sweet peas smell so heavenly and I love all the colors that I got this year. Next year, I might skip sugar snap peas (for food) and instead use all the supports to grow sweet pea flowers. I can always buy fresh peas from the farmer's market but I haven't seen a place selling fresh-cut sweet pea flowers. With a limited garden space, I might as well grow something that I love and hard to find.
Even though sweet peas are excellent cut flowers, the vase life of sweet pea seems to be rather short. If cut at full bloom, they last only a a couple of days. I should try cutting the stems with buds and see how they go.
I notice bee balms, purple cone flower, coreopsis blooming this week. My balloon flower (platycodon) started to bloom and liatris (blazing start) is geting ready to burst out. And yes, sunflowers are opening up in their glory.
Yeon
Two different lavender blooms. Nasturtium and desert blue bells trailing slightly down. Cosmos in the center. Borage blossoms, mostly in buds, in the back. These are reflecting what are blooming in my garden.
In my neighborhood this week, more hydrangea plants started to bloom. Asiatic lilies and day lilies started to open up. Spirea in my garden started to bloom. Sweet peas are getting ready to bloom.
Yeon
What can I say. Peonies were in full bloom. All the white peonies (with very pale pink undertone) are from my garden. Anything pink is from Shelton's back yard.
Ricardo also brought a beautiful flower arrangement which included iris, roses and peonies.
In my garden, my volunteer cosmos started to bloom this week. Spider wort, yarrow, and clematis are blooming now.
Yeon
Globe master blooms are giant, purple, perfect spheres. I don't think they need other supporting flowers to look pretty. However, I had over-wintered Russian Kale growing and flowering right next to them, matching up the globe masters in height while contrasting nicely with its yellow flowers. So I put them together in a vase. I also had a few peony stems from my garden and Shelton's garden and added them to the arrangement. Lovely.
At the farmer's market, I happened to hang out at the back of Cakes for Cause booth with Audrey and Marvin when Diane stopped by and bought the flowers. I was excited! She wanted to buy fresh cut flowers at the farmer's market but last week we didn't have any vendors carrying cut flowers. She saw the arrangement at the Cakes for Cause booth, asked if she could buy it, and Elin sold the flowers. The money from the flowers went to Cakes for Cause as a donation. I felt proud (yay, they are flowers from my garden!), worried (those kale flowers are not really meant for a flower arrangement, they shed petals a lot), and overall very happy. I hope to hear back from Diane how her friend liked the flowers locally grown from neighbor's back yard. Hope her friend didn't get too annoyed with the kale flowers.
This week peony, iris, rose and clematis are blooming everywhere. I envy my neighbors who have gorgeous rose bush and/or big iris bed blooming profusely. I want to start a rose garden and a decent iris bed soon! My peony plant is doing excellent this year though filling up the void from the lack of rose bushes. I plan to make a huge bouquet of peony flowers tomorrow for the market with peony flowers from my garden and friends' gardens.
Last year Jubilee organic farm brought cut stems of peony flowers in buckets. If you are looking for fresh cut flowers at the market, your wish might be granted tomorrow.
Yeon
The new growing season is approaching fast and I would like to wrap up soon posting the photos of flowers from last year. The week of July 13 was one of my favorite weeks for flower picking. All the oriental lilies in my back yard opened up. I love their cherry deep pink colors with dots along the petal. Lisianthus bloomed too. Their crepe paper like petals look like bell flowers when they are still opening, and then they look like roses when fully open. They come in a shade of cream- pink -lavender - purple - blue.
Most of the flowers are from Shannon's garden. Shannon has one of the most prolific hydrangea bushes which I envy so much. Blue hydrangea that I used for red-white-blue arrangement above AND the pink and green hydrangea blooms below are all from Shannon's garden. One can't have too much hydrangea.
Week of June 28: Poppies started to bloom. Echinacia and zinnia (which I started from seeds) started to bloom too. For a small vase, I placed delicate pale pink poppies from my garden and airy coral bells from Jen's garden. Don't they look so lovely together? Poppies were so pretty I asked myself 'what did I do to deserve this beautiful bloom?' But then I remembered that I have been obsessively buying and sowing poppy flower seeds every year. Yeh, it's about time. The small patch that I reserved for the poppy did very well, and tiny flower bloomed into October. I let them self sow quite a bit for next year. Hopefully I will see that papery delicate beauties again.
It was so nice of Jen to let me have one of her last rose bloom of the season. I surrounded the center piece rose with some zinnias (pink and orange) and echinacea from my garden, and petunia and butterfly bush flower from Jen's.
Isn't it nice to see pretty summer flowers in the darkest days of the year? As Shannon mentioned, I have some backlogs of photos which I would like to share, remembering the glory of the growing season and planning the next year's garden.
Week of June 21: Hydrangea is blooming everywhere.
Jen brought me five stems of pale blue hydrangea flowers from her sister's garden. I also got two stems of purple hydrangea and four stems of astilbe from Lynda's garden. I added snapdragon flowers and hosta leaves from my garden. The green vase takes big volume of flowers to fill up and thus I get to use it rarely. I was happy to have abundance of flowers that hugged the vase nicely.
When I was on a ferry to Vancouver Island many summers ago, I bought a book called "Gardening for the faint of heart" by Robin Wheeler. She was such a big fan of astilbes and I never understood. It's funny that your taste for plants changes as time goes. Now whenever I filp though a perennial plants catalog, I ponder on what color of astilebe I should get. I know. So many plants you want for the little space you have.
Yeon
Another flowerless week in my backyard. All the flowers are from friends' gardens except the golden oregano.
Jeanine was busy pulling out weeds in her garden When I visited her. Her garden went through such a transformation. When she bought her house, her yard was completely covered with weeds. Now, she has nice flower beds on both sides of the yard. A rock garden toward the back raises the view and big rhododendrons provide dependable green backdrop near the gate. She also spent last summer laying red-brick path in her yard. Her patio got extended with the same bricks, and a curvy red-brick path leads you into the long rectangular garden. I love her garden. Did I say I love visiting other gardener's garden? I really do.
From Jeanine's garden I got yellow flowers
I love flowers. When Elin said that she would like to have flowers or a small pot of plant to decorate Cakes for Cause stand at the farmer's market, I volunteered right away. It was and is my mission to find fresh flowers for every Saturday. And no, I don't buy flowers from a grocery store or a flower shop. I figured it would be nice to have a small arrangement of flowers from our own gardens. This way we could track what kind of flowers bloom when. It is also more fun, more meaningful and more challenging.
I have a modest selection of flowers growing in my backyard, but it is not enough to fill a vase of flowers, not for every week. I asked my gardener friends and they have generously donated flowers from week to week. I have been taking pictures and now have some catching-up to do. So let's start from the very beginning, June 7.
Note to myself -I don't have anything blooming at the beginning of June. I just had gorgeous globemaster Allium blooming, 9 of them towering over my raised bed and they were all done by June. Roses at Ricardo and Doug's garden were fading too. Luckily, Jen asked her mom and she sent us two huge bouquet of flowers which I combined to one.
From the garden of Jen's mom
