Port Potager

Glad I made it outside to cut flowers yesterday before today's downpours came and crushed a bunch of our cutting bed plants. Here's what I'm enjoying in the vase this week: hosta, snapdragons, and zinnia black-eyed Susans rose, Chinese forget-me-not, lavender, and yarrow

There are still lots of flowers going strong in the cutting garden, and they seem no worse for wear as the ride out the dry spell we've had this August. This is one time where the deep afternoon shade is a blessing, but in general I think most flowers would enjoy a sunnier location. Alas, they will always play second fiddle to tomatoes and beans, and so must learn to adapt to less than optimal conditions. Anyway, I really love blue flowers, so I was excited to have enough blooming at once to make an all-blue bouquet: Chinese forget-me-not, bachelor's buttons, and lavender  I also grabbed a few other really bright flowers for a different room. That zinnia grew with a crazily bent stem so it looks a little funny, but I like the way the yellow center exactly matches the other yellow petals:   Zinnia and black-eyed Susans I almost put some pale pink snapdragons and baby's breath in that blue bouquet, but decided against it. Pink and blue always make...

Today's Flower Friday is a tale of two cutting gardens. On one hand, we see the happy mayhem of just cutting whatever happens to be blooming and throwing it into a mason jar: Baby's breath, phlox, black-eyed Susans, zinnia, bachelor's buttons, penstemon, hosta, and snapdragon.  On the other hand, we see the result of some carefully controlled color selections. When I first started planting the cutting garden , I chose perennials in a range of sunset colors: orange, peachy-salmons, golden yellows, plus deep purples and blues for contrast. I also tried to choose seeds for annuals that fit that scheme this past spring as well (though looking back, I can see that some things didn't bloom). Anyway, the idea was that anything in bloom at any given time would look good together. I guess that's true of the first bouquet, but below is a primo case study of what I was going for with that sunset color scheme: Echinacea, yarrow, roses, foxglove, and Chin...

Unlike last week , this week I remembered to take a picture of the cutting garden before any actual cutting occurred: Yes, there's still a hole in the fence. Yes, it's gotten bigger as the kids continue to use it as a short cut to the neighbors' yard next door. Allow me to distract your eye with pretty flowers: Chinese forget-me-not, astilbe, yarrow, snapdragon, and bachelor's button. Chinese forget-me-not, astilbe, and open-faced snapdragons. Here's a closer look at those open-faced snapdragons. They grow on a spike, but are a cup shape instead of a mouth shape. I like them (though the kids don't think they're as fun), and they were pretty easy to grow from seed. Black-eyed Susan, echinacea, and snapdragons.

Another kinda lame Flower Friday , but I am on vacation. Instead of vases of flowers that will definitely be dead by the time we get back, here's what the cutting garden looks like in its current, pre-cut state: Here you can see short marigolds in the front, tall orange cosmos in the back, and some pink zinnias mixed in. This is from another angle: The cosmos are on the right, with zinnias in the middle and black-eyed Susans to the left. Not much going on here in the way of perennials lately, although I do have some echinacea, salvia, and veronica trying to make a go at a second flowering. I hope so — I don't think there will be much left for September and October unless I pick up some new annuals to round out the fall.

Not too much to choose from right now — just the late-summer annuals are still going strong. The marigolds and zinnias also last pretty long in the vase, so I don't need to replace the bouquets as often. That's good, since I'm busy dealing with peaches, pickles, and tomatoes right now. Zinnias and hosta leaves. Brown-eyed Susans, snapdragons, echinacea, and zinnia. Marigolds and zinnias.

Pale pinks and whites are long gone — time for the bright, hot colors of late summer! I'm warming up to most of the pink shades of the zinnias, although I left some purplish-pink ones uncut. Zinnias and black-eyed Susans (a lovely gift from a friend's garden!). Black-eyed Susans and cosmos. Black-eyed Susans, calendula, cosmos, blanketflower, and zinnia. Zinnias and yarrow. Astilbe leaf, snapdragon, zinnia, echinacea, and salvia.