June 24, 2016

The Cutting Garden


I may have mentioned that my cutting garden this year is smack in the middle of the vegetable garden. The soil is better there, and I just love having splashes of color with all the veggies.
Besides, flowers feed my soul, so the food garden is the perfect place for them, right?

So far this year I have weeded out literally hundreds of self-seeded cosmos from last year's cosmo jungle. While I love cosmos, (not the kissy kind of love! as my 4-year-old would hastily qualify), I don't need them filling up an entire terrace!

Exhibit A: the Cosmo Jungle of 2015

Earlier in the spring I had planted some poppies, but didn't see any coming up.
Well, as I weeded the cosmos out, I found some poppy seedlings!
I was pretty excited.

They just started blooming--so far we've had red, orange, and pink.
These are California Poppy 'Mission Bells', or Eschscolzia californica.

The only thing I'm noticing is that they may not be the best for floral arrangements, because their stems are all pretty short. Oh well!
(Not that short stems has ever stopped my kiddos from picking things!)

I have a few plants still coming that I think are the Poppy 'Lauren's Grape', or Papaver somniferm
(beautiful deep purple color) that I also planted from seed.

I have also planted Bunny Tails grass, or Lagurus ovatus (we planted these last year and loved them!)
and a packet of "Grandmother's Cut Flower Garden" which contains a mix of 22 different flowers.

The inside of the seed packet had a good idea--which since I just now read it, I am too late to implement this year.  For next time: to help identify flower seedlings popping up vs. weeds, sow a pinch of your wildflower mix into a garden pot, so you can compare. Smart!

A few weeks ago I scattered some scarlet flax seed as well.

Plus, I still have all the cosmo seedlings I couldn't quite reach along the back edge of the bed, and one whole section of them that I thinned to 6 inches apart a few weeks ago. 

So far the wildflowers are just barely coming up.
I've pulled what I know are weeds, but the rest are sure taking their sweet time!
I hope by the end of the summer they'll look amazing!

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