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After Thanksgiving, I filled a ceramic bowl with rocks and three paperwhite flower bulbs. Since rocks do not retain water like soil, the bulbs needed to be watered often. In about a week, green shoots pierced through the brown bulbs and grew straight up. A week before Christmas, there were green buds atop tall green stalks. As the buds opened, they looked like small unzipped purses filled with tissue. By Christmas, small clusters of white flowers waved above the rocks and bulbs. |
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Their pleasant fragrance quickly turned pungent in our small kitchen. The scent became less intense after I cut the flowers and placed them in a vase of water. I plan to grow more flowering bulbs in rocks throughout the winter.
Bulbs – packed with potential, given a little warmth, water and time, their true beauty revealed. May the New Year 2012, be filled with warmth, refreshment and all that inspires you to grow! |
Flowers
How to Make Hydrangea Wreaths
Hydrangea blooms make lovely indoor wreaths that will last all year until the hydrangea bush blooms again next summer. My mom, a floral designer, taught my son and me how to make dried hydrangea wreaths last weekend. It is not difficult. My son will show you how it is done. |
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Pick hydrangea when the blooms feel thick and “leathery” and the bloom color is muted (blue turns pale green and pink turns light violet). Pick the full bloom at the main stalk. Rinse and soak it in cold water for a few minutes, then place it in a towel and gently squeeze to remove excess moisture. |
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Add a hook to the floral form. Make the hook from a 10 to 12 inch long piece of floral wire that has been wrapped with floral tape. Bend one end of the wire to make a loop and wrap the other end around the wreath. Close each end with a twist. |
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Place Spanish moss on the back of the wwreath to give it a finished appearance. Fresh or dried Spanish moss may be used. Gently pull apart the moss and secure it with floral pins on the inner and outer edges of the floral form. |
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Loosely secure the Spanish moss, avoid placing it in clumps on the form. The moss will gracefully hide the floral form. Cover the entire back portion of the form. After the back is covered, turn the wreath form over so the moss side is on the table. The wreath is now ready for the hydrangea! |
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 Before inserting hydrangea in the form, clip the full bloom ionto smaller pieces. Each cut bloom piece needs a pointy stem in order to stick into the floral form. Fill in the face of the form with bigger pieces and the outer portion of the form with smaller pieces. |
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If the stem of the bloom is too soft and will not stick into the form then attach a floral wire to the stem. First, twirl a bit of floral tape around the hydrangea stem then place the wire on the stem and continue to wrap the tape all the way to end of wire. The wire slips easily into the form and holds the bloom securely in place. |
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My son’s wreath is almost finished. It took him about one hour and 6 to 8 full blooms of hydrangea to complete his wreath. When you finish your wreath, hang it on the wall in a cool and dry place in your house, preferably out of direct sunlight. The wreath will dry in about 2 days. It is fragile, carry it carefully. |
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TAH DAH!! My son finished his wreath. Wreath-making is a good practice in …
Happy Wreath-Making!! |
Unexpected Sunflowers
Our compost bin sprouted a short and compact sunflower plant with small (for a sunflower) bright blooms. Those blooms attract a diverse group of bugs to our garden. Unlike the tall sunflowers we usually grow, these sunflowers are at eye level. We can see the bees, ants, beetles, stink bugs and assassin bugs inside each floret filled center.
Sunflowers are great in a vegetable garden because they attract beneficial bugs to the garden and divert pest bugs from vegetable crops.
Do you have any surprise plants growing out of your compost bin?
Sunflower and Gourd Seeds Planted
My son has his own garden bed in our community garden plot. For the last two years he has only planted Giant Sunflower seeds in his garden bed. This year he planted Bottle Gourd seeds along with a new variety of Sunflower seeds. My son plans to make his own birdhouses and musical instruments from the gourds he grows (we will consult the Gourd Reserve when it comes time for harvesting and drying the gourds). He planted Magic Roundabout Sunflower seeds, a hybrid sunflower that branches out and produces more than one flower per plant through summer into fall. I plan to brighten our house with cut sunflowers this summer and fall!
Everything from our garden plot does not need to be edible to be useful!
Fragrant Honeysuckle
One day as I walked home from my son’s school, I saw a woman picking the honeysuckle flowers off the vines. My gardener’s curiosity gave me boldness. I crossed the street and talked to her. She had a soft mound of the delicate flowers inside her plastic grocery bag. She told me that she makes honeysuckle tea from the flowers by seeping a cup of the flowers in a quart of boiling water.
I did some research and discovered that honeysuckle tea has several medicinal uses. But the leaves of the honeysuckle vine can be poisonous if injested.
Have you tried honeysuckle tea?
A Flower Quiz and Haiku
Can you name the April flowers (one is not a flower) blooming in our gardens?
You will find the answers below my April Flowers Haiku.
Tissue paper shapes.
Colors unfold from cold earth,
fragile, hardy hope.
Answers: (left to right, top: pansy, double blooming daffodil, strawberry blossom, hyacinth, tulip; middle: miniature iris, azalea; bottom: alba reptans ground cover, sweet woodruff, African violet, vinca ground cover and royal fern)
Sunflowers Protect Garden
Last week in our community garden we turned the soil, picked spinach, pulled weeds, planted sugar snap peas, leeks and shallots and discussed last years’ stink bug invasion with a new garden neighbor. She feared the stink bugs might cause damage to her new garden this summer. She heard other community gardeners’ stories of tomatoes, squash and other crops ruined by the pesky bugs. I reassured her that the stink bugs did not damage our crops. We had an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and squash, but by the end of summer our sunflowers were infested with the bugs. We had a stink bug hotel towering above our garden (see Fall Clean Up and Demolition blog post). We did not plan to grow sunflowers in our garden this year, but after talking to our new garden neighbor, I realize the sunflowers probably saved our crops last year! We will plant sunflowers again to divert the stink bugs.
How will you protect your garden from the stink bugs this year?
Our Hyacinths Give a Fragrant Welcome
Blue, peach, white and purple hyacinths are in full bloom again under our Bradford Pear tree in the front yard. They give a fragrant greeting to everyone who comes to our home. The hardy clusters of waxy star-like flowers stay through April. Even their long green leaves brighten up our lawn-free front yard in May, after the hyacinth flower is gone and before the ground covers spread. I don’t clip the green leaves until they turn brown because the leaves absorb the sunlight, giving the underground hyacinth bulbs nourishing sunshine to store up for next years’ flowers. Hyacinth bulbs typically only bloom for a couple of seasons then need to be replaced. This is our hyacinths’ fourth spring season!
Christmas Cactus
My Christmas Cactus has faithfully bloomed at Christmas for the past seven years. I don’t do anything special to insure that it blooms. It stays in the same spot in front of a window that brings in morning sunlight. It is in a clay pot that sits on a drain saucer filled with stones. I water it about twice a week.
Each year when the pink flowers burst out of their buds, I think about the family that gave me the Christmas Cactus. When I worked in an outpatient center at a Children’s Hospital, I helped a young boy with Spina Bifida. He could not walk and he had a severe pressure sore on his back. This boy had the brightest smile and cheerful attitude. He and his parents spoke only a few words of English. They came to the United States as refugees. Grateful for the care that their son received at the hospital, the parents gave some of the staff a small Christmas Cactus. My cactus has more than tripled in size. I wonder how the little boy has grown. Every year my cactus reminds me of that boy and how the greatest gifts have humble beginnings. Then I think about another humble beginning…. God’s greatest gift to mankind began in a baby. Merry Christmas!
Wordless Wednesday
Our Garden Plot 