You Can't Eat Flowers
Well, technically, there are a few that taste okay, and they make really pretty additions to summery salads and such.
But mostly, flowers are to look at, and for some reason, they make me very, very happy. Hubby does most of the vegetable gardening these days, but I still love my flowers and refuse to let my aching back keep me from them.
My lawn is full of flowers, and I try to arrange it so they're there from early spring to late fall: daffodils, tulips, narcissus, crocus, violets, and hyacinth come first, blooming in various places at various times, depending on where the sun hits. Then come the flowering bushes: lilac, snowball, spirea, and a little one I always forget the name of, though I look it up every year. Peonies, iris, lilies of the valley, day lilies, tiger lilies, and other colors of lily come in their turn, along with the potentilla bushes and
clematis, who take a while to warm up enough to bloom. Add whatever annuals I choose in a given year: lots of petunias because they're happy with wherever they're planted. Marigolds because they can take the heat, and I recently put in a perennial that looks like grass most of the time but has tiny pink flowers in June. Impatiens because they like my shady back door. And a variety in the front flower box, running to pinks and pansies. Late summer brings the hollyhocks and something my family calls "outhouse flowers," apparently because they were often grown to disguise the outhouse in the back yard. They're tall and hardy with a small, aster-like yellow flower atop the stalk, and they spread easily, making a nice line along my front driveway edge.
Perhaps most fun of all are sunflowers, and our first one showed its pretty face this week. I managed to make it appear to be growing out of my head, but I'm quite inexperienced at selfies and intend to stay that way.
But mostly, flowers are to look at, and for some reason, they make me very, very happy. Hubby does most of the vegetable gardening these days, but I still love my flowers and refuse to let my aching back keep me from them.My lawn is full of flowers, and I try to arrange it so they're there from early spring to late fall: daffodils, tulips, narcissus, crocus, violets, and hyacinth come first, blooming in various places at various times, depending on where the sun hits. Then come the flowering bushes: lilac, snowball, spirea, and a little one I always forget the name of, though I look it up every year. Peonies, iris, lilies of the valley, day lilies, tiger lilies, and other colors of lily come in their turn, along with the potentilla bushes and
clematis, who take a while to warm up enough to bloom. Add whatever annuals I choose in a given year: lots of petunias because they're happy with wherever they're planted. Marigolds because they can take the heat, and I recently put in a perennial that looks like grass most of the time but has tiny pink flowers in June. Impatiens because they like my shady back door. And a variety in the front flower box, running to pinks and pansies. Late summer brings the hollyhocks and something my family calls "outhouse flowers," apparently because they were often grown to disguise the outhouse in the back yard. They're tall and hardy with a small, aster-like yellow flower atop the stalk, and they spread easily, making a nice line along my front driveway edge.
Perhaps most fun of all are sunflowers, and our first one showed its pretty face this week. I managed to make it appear to be growing out of my head, but I'm quite inexperienced at selfies and intend to stay that way.
Comments
Post a Comment