Port Potager

Despite the cutworm scourge , the rose slug infestation , and spring's slow, cold start, June has finally arrived. And with that comes lots of color in the cutting garden: Here you can see yarrow, poppies, and lupines. Those yellow lupines have been a wonderful surprise. I planted them just last year, and this spring they have come up three times the size that they were. They are growing straight and tall, and look really great. There are some other flowers here too, and I gathered up an armful of them to bring inside before the rain comes again: In the vase are the yellow lupines, pink irises and poppies, white Siberian irises, some red yarrow, and some purple salvia (that last one's in the front and a bit hard to see in the shadow).  June is the very best time for garden flowers here: It’s the time just in between spring's rain and summer's heat. I haven't added any plants to the cutting garden this year, but instead decided to wait out a seas...

When it rains every day, it's hard to get out to bring in flowers — way too messy when they are dripping wet. Only two new arrangements this week, even though there are lots of flowers in bloom outside. Foxglove and peonies. Delphinium, valerian, globeflower, yarrow, and columbine.

Lots of peonies this week! It's that time of year, but I also did a rescue operation on a bunch of them. They look great now, but it's supposed to dump a good 3-4 inches of rain here tomorrow afternoon, and that will pretty much destroy all those layers of petals. There are also lots of dusty pinks and muted sunset tones, which shows more of the color scheme I was working in the cutting bed plants. Poppies and globeflower "New Moon." Same poppies and globeflower as above, but the bigger poppy has lost its petals. The pistil and stamen are so interesting with its purple pollen that I think it actually improves the arrangement. Pink irises. Siberian iris.  (I swiped these are from the perennial border.) Pink iris, strawberry foxglove, columbine, and globeflower.  (This iris is the one that was still open a few days after I cut the original stem in the photo above. I am hoping the foxglove continues to open up the stem so t...

This week marks the last of the bulbs in the cutting garden. It might be a little thin in June until some annuals start to fill in, but there are some interesting shapes and colors right now, if nothing very big.  Tulip, daffodil, Jacob's ladder "Bresingham purple," and columbine "Nora Barlow." This is an updated version of the previous bouquet, swapping out the faded tulip for a yellow "New Moon" globeflower.  Delphinium and Baptista "Starlight Prairie Blues." Peony and hosta. Blanketflower "Moxie" and salvia "Merleau Blue." A closeup of the blanketflower shows how interesting its shape and colors are.  I thought the salvia needed a closeup too, since the color wasn't really coming through in the first photo.