Bouquets for Monday May 25th

These bouquets have commercial chrysanthemums and statice but also include the first peonies and forced lilies. The brilliant pink peony is 'Paula Fay'. I don't have any other peonies that are quite that color. the Wild's catalog says somthing like the color, "carries well across the garden" which it certainly does. The big blue and white stippled iris is (I think) 'Stepping Out'.

The orange lily with the black blotches is an asiatic lily called 'Loreto'. I have not grown it before but it is certainly striking.

Bouquets for Friday May 22nd

I've been really bad about taking pictures this year. About half the bouquets last Friday look like this. The chrysanthemums and statice are commercial flowers. The large white flowers on the lower left are double file viburnum. The arching flower with the varigated leaves is varigated solomon's seal. You can also seen allium 'Purple Sensation' and perennial bachelor's button (Centaurea montana).

Heirloom Tomato Sale

The second part of Project Grow's heirloom tomato sale is this Saturday May 16th from 8am-3pm in front of the People's Food Co-op on $th Avenue in Ann Arbor. Plants were also available at the Matthaei Botanical Garden plant sale last weekend and more than 2/3 of the plants were snapped up there, so if you are looking for unusual tomato seedlings be sure to stop by this Saturday.

Bouquets for Friday May 15th

I've been really busy and have not been keeping up with posting pictures. The flowers in the bouquets have pretty much been the same for the past few weeks - daffodils, tulips, crabapple branches, Doronicum, and lilacs.

Flowers for tomorrow were either pink and white or yellow and white like these:

I'm about out of tulips and daffodils and still waiting to see if enough shasta daisies, iris, alliums and columbines will open up for next Monday. It is not looking too good right now.

Botanical Names 101 - Lesson 2

The latest Bluebird newsletter has some more fun species names.

angustifolius (an-gus-ti-FO-li-us). Narrow-leaved.
australis (as-TRA-lis). Southern.
canadensis (kan-a-DEN-sis). From Canada.
deltoides (del-TOID-ez). Triangular shape.
mollis (MOL-lis). Soft, hairy.
nutans (NU-tanz). Nodding.
pallida (PAL-lid-a) Pale.
rupestris (ru-PRES-tris). Rock-loving.
scandens (SKAN-denz). Climbing.
speciosus (spe-si-O-sus). Showy, good-looking.
spicata (spi-KA-ta). With spikes.

I can only think of a couple of these off the top of my head but they do fit. For example, Lady's Mantle is Alchemilla mollis and the leaves are indeed soft and fuzzy. Gayfeather or Liatris spicata blooms on long, narrow spikes.

Bouquets for Monday April 20th

For the first two or three weeks each season, all the bouquets look pretty much alike. I've only got tulips and daffodils to work with so they differ mainly in colors and types of greenery. Here is one for today that has boxwood. The daffodils (which were open by today) are pale yellow so they look pretty good with the pinks.

Bouquets for April 13th and 17th, 2009

The first bouquets of 2009 looked very similar to the one shown below. This picture was taken on Tuesday evening of a bouquet made up for Monday. In the bouquets for Monday, I had cut some of the daffodils too early and they did not all open properly. They still looked OK until they started to actually fade, but they didn't look exactly like daffodils. You can see how the daffodils look like yellow tube flowers instead of daffodils.

Here is the same bouquet on Wednesday evening. The tulip stems have lengthened even more now.

On Thursday evening I recut the tulips to different lengths and rearranged them. The daffodils are looking pretty tired.


And here they are again on Friday evening.

Last of all is a picture from Saturday. I pulled out the daffodils but the tulips are still looking pretty good.