Quotable Sunday

Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.      -author unknown-

Winter Solstice & Summer's Bounty!

With the Winter Solstice fast approaching we wanted to re-live the magic and beauty of the flowers that we experienced this season. We hope you enjoy the video of this season's bounty and it gets you as psyched(Man!) for next spring as it does for us!

A video look back on 2011's season of flowers!

Quotable Sunday 12/18

         There are two diversions that can ease the bite of any 

        winter.  One is the January thaw.    The other is the seed 

                       catalogs   .      - Hal Borland-

So many choices, so many ideas, so many dreams......

 What will they like, what will they love, what can't they pass up.....

What colors, how many seeds, do we have enough...

Do we need more..... 

Oh just pick some,  so we can start planting!

Quotable Sunday 12/11

 

 I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show.       Andrew Wyeth

In a tradition started of a  friend Kyrie of Are So Happy and carried on with Kerry of Young Ones and Linnea of PeppermintAlley, they invite you to post a quote on your site every Sunday. Quotations can be old favorites or new inspiration, funny or sentimental, famous or personal, just give credit {where credit is due} and have fun.

How do you join?

After you have made a post, link it via comments to this post.  Please invite your friends to share as well by pointing them there.  You can also join the flickr group and add your weekly contribution there.  Linnea will host for November, Kerry will host in December, and Kyrie will host in January.

New Traditions: Quotable Sunday

 Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. Luther Burbank

In a tradition started of a  friend Kyrie of Are So Happy and carried on with Kerry of Young Ones and Linnea of PeppermintAlley, they invite you to post a quote on your site every Sunday. Quotations can be old favorites or new inspiration, funny or sentimental, famous or personal, just give credit {where credit is due} and have fun.

How do you join?

After you have made a post, link it via comments to this post.  Please invite your friends to share as well by pointing them there.  You can also join the flickr group and add your weekly contribution there.  Linnea will host for November, Kerry will host in December, and Kyrie will host in January. {I’ll do my best to link it all up so you know where to go and add your contribution!}

Digging Dahlias

On the rarest of seasons, we get a harsh winter with freezing temperatures.  The 2009 season we lost 3000 dahlia tubers because it froze for over a week and a foot deep before we had them out of the ground. We also have a big problem with mice and voles eating our tubers.  So we will always dig the dahlias.

Callie the Flower Dog is helping dig....  voles mostly.

The process begins after a light frost and the tops have died down.  Tony digs the dahlias up and they are washed and crated up to be divided.  Once the dahlias are clean and dry, the dividing takes place.  Tony has a real knack for seeing the eyes.  I look and look and can't see them even with reading glasses.  I can see them in the spring when they really start to sprout.      

After they are cut and marked with a number to remind us of the variety, we pack them in Christmas totes in wood shavings and placed in our flower cooler for the winter.  We used to pack away about 5000 tubers for the next year and it would take till New Years to finish the job, but now we are older and slower, so now we pack away about 3000 tubers.

We hold about 53 different varieties of dahlias.  New varieties come in and other old varieties are evaluated to determine if they get to remain in our flower mix.  The criterion for remaining is they have to be a great tuber producer for the next year's crop, they need to stand on their own without stakes or netting, and they have to be a popular color or style with us and our customers. 

The method of packing them in wood shavings and placing them in our cooler has been pretty successful for us.  We get very little rot or loss; in fact one year we held a tote of one variety for two years in the cooler because it is such a productive tuber producer and we couldn't plant all the tubers.  They were still good the next year.

        So with much  hard work and a little bit of luck, we get a field of beautiful dahlias that we love.

                                  We hope you will fall in love with these dahlias too!

Fresh Baked Bread Brightens Up Everything!

Okay, I know we are flower farmers, but nothing is better then the smell of freshly baked sourdough bread right out of the oven!   Its neat to hear the snap, crackle, and pop of the crust as it cools. Warms things up on a rainy and stormy Fall day... 

Going to the Dark Side of the Moon.

We are big fans of the movie "Apollo13" and the scene where the damaged spacecraft was headed to the dark side of the moon to enable it to safely return home.  There is radio silence and suspense of the crew coming back into contact with Houston and safely returning home.  We have been referring to this time of year for our overwintering flowers as going to the dark side of the moon.

           

Today is the day where our flowers will begin receiving less than 9 1/2 hours of daylight and they will now stop growing.  They will bide their time and hopefully survive until January 23rd, where they will reemerge from the dark side, the hours will begin to increase and our flowers will begin to grow again.

Although December 21st is the shortest day of the year with 8 1/2 hours of daylight, the plants are actually affected earlier and longer by the absence of enough light for our latitude.  So Houston, our seedlings are going into radio silence.  We will catch up with them on the other side of the moon in January.

Flowers in November

The challenge for me today, was to see if I could do a vase of flowers for the house in the middle of November.  I could see a few Calendulas from the window and decided to scout about for other flowers that still have some life left.  In the bucket I have some Sour Grapes Penstemons, some Dianthus  and a little yellow Rose.  Notice the Zinnias behind are completely toasted.

Not too many Calendulas to choose from.  They look better from the window.

Found a few Hydrangeas in pretty autumn colors.

It came out pretty nice especially after a half dozen freezing nights.  Calendulas, Dianthus and Hydrangeas seem to be pretty tough flowers.  See the one little yellow Rose that didn't know to quit.

Summer Wedding

This summer we had the pleasure of providing wedding bouquets and flowers to a wonderful couple, Bre & Matt.  Their wedding was held in a lovely woodland setting and the couple choose a beautiful color scheme of aubergine, burnt orange and a soft lime green.  They also wanted the flowers to be mostly dahlias and zinnias.  We enjoyed meeting them and helping them with their very special day!

The Bridal Bouquets

The Bride's Bouquet

A Bride maid's Bouquet

Corsages

Boutonnieres

The color combinations were breathtaking!

We so enjoyed working with this great couple and we wish them a long and happy marriage!

                                           

What to do with a ton of lavender?

                                           Lavender, abundant, aromatic and fresh......
                                       
                                           Relaxing, clean and soothing.....

                                       How to surround yourself with this lovely fragrance.

                              . 
                                                   

Lavender Lovelies are made with colorful ribbon and freshly  harvested lavender buds that stay fragrant for a year or more.

They are small and thin and slip between your towels, sheets and lingerie. They tuck into corners of your luggage, dishtowels  and table linens.

Set one beside your bed for a restful sleep.  They are a lovely gift for a bridal shower, hostess or slip into a Christmas stocking.

Just give them a tiny squeeze to  release a beautiful hint of lavender fragrance.  They come as          singles or in packages of five.


The Perfect Hint of Summer All Year Round!

              You can find Lavender Lovelies for sale now in our Facebook Store    We are just getting started setting up the store and these were our first items uploaded. They are under the the everlastings category.