Hey y’all, you know we adore our veggies, but don’t want to forget about our flowers! We love making our corner of the world beautiful.

The same gardening principles apply for both flowers and veggies:
~Rich soil
~Location, location, location. Which pretty much boils down to the proper Sun and Water/Drainage, per particular plant’s preferences (say that 5 times fast! Smiles.)
~TLC throughout the season {weeding, “dead-heading,” fertilizing}

Some basics you probably already know…
~Flowers come in two varieties: annual (bloom one season) and perennial (bloom season after season). Perennials will save you money in the long run, but annuals are sweet to fill in the gaps and add pops of happy & color.

~Do a little research {the plastic info tags in pots are very helpful}:
Some flowers crave sunshine, others shy away from it.
Some flowers love a good soaking, others want to dry out.
Some flowers require no pruning, others have to be “dead-headed” {pick off withered blooms.}

Speaking of dead-heading, this can be tedious, but we promise, it’s well worth the effort. Your flower’s life will be extended throughout it’s growing season with just 5-10 minutes a day popping dead flowers off / snapping off at the base of it’s leg. The reward of bountiful blooms is awesome!

Here’s a snapshot of our flower garden.

Our ‘aerial’ view. Since it’s a small’ish space, we opted to have a pot with a topiary as the central focus point.

Tee tiny Geraniums came back from last year. They are ‘tender’ perennials {not fond of cold winters, but will come back with a mild one}.

Pansies are colorful annuals, but are a tad high maintenance. They prefer cooler weather, and l-o-v-e to be dead-headed as they can get ‘leggy’ {long stems. These aren’t ideal for the health of your pansies.} Helpful hint: extend life of your pansies by moving them to a shadier spot and watering them with ice cubes laid on top of soil.

Carnations! We’ve never planted these before, but they should be great for cut-flowers. These are ‘tender’ perennials too.

How fun are gerber daises? Some of ours came back from last year {potted ones} and we added a few to jazz things up. Helpful hint: Use the head as a decoration on a wrapped gift.

For ‘motion’ in your garden, aim for tall, medium, short and ground covering height plants. Foxglove are gorgeous and grow to ~3 feet. Other tall flowers are hollyhock, allium, delphinium, or bulbs like irises or gladiolas. Helpful hint: tall plants will need to be ‘staked.’ You can buy pre-fab ones at the garden center, or use sticks/string.

Yarrow is beautiful and adds a touch of whimsy. We had Queen Anne’s Lace last year that didn’t enjoy it’s location {i.e. bit the dust pretty quickly}. Yarrow resembles QAL and is fairly hardy.

We have no idea what this is! Haha! But it gets 2-3 feet tall & has a foot wide spread.

To the bottom left we have lavender that over 3 years has grown into a small bush! Gotta figure out how to harvest it.

To round out our flower garden we have a few marigolds in a pot, pin cushions and a pretty yellow spikey plant we don’t remember the name of.

Any questions about flowers? We’d love to help answer them!

Happy Harvest!
Hg and Sam

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