It's a Jungle in Here!

 

I have started putting together planters this past week. I had one order, then 2 more came in. So I have spent some quality time purchasing various houseplants to put together into planters for my customers. It’s fun! Also, I may have purchased one or two for myself (cough, cough).

There were 2 maidenhair ferns that were just begging to be rescued from the Clearance shelves, which I did. They are getting some TLC now, in hopes that they will revive and live long! No, they’re not going into the planters just yet. I’ve never been great at keeping houseplants alive, so only paying a dollar or two for them helps with the guilt a little bit. Hey, I do try. So who knows? Maybe they will do great this time! One is upstairs on my bathroom windowsill and one is down here under the lights.

My first planter had a mini orchid in it, 1 dracaena, and one maidenhair fern (a healthy one.) It was pretty, if I do say so myself! I’m going to do a very similar one for someone else—and I even was able to find the same orchid, which is what she wanted. Woohoo!

The other planter will have red anthurium, a small croton with red in the leaves, and either a silverleaf fern or possibly some ivy. I’ve just got to double check and make sure they all have similar care requirements.

Hey, by the way—I found out today amidst my wanderings that Home Depot and Lowe’s use the same supplier for their houseplants. How about that? And for the most part, Home Depot was cheaper, but Lowe’s had a better selection.

I also have 11 amaryllis potted up now. I opened up the gift boxes I had in my booth for sale. It stays pretty warm in the store, so I wanted to see what the amaryllis were doing. Sure enough, 1 of them had a 6 inch long bud and stalk, all white from lack of lights and growing sideways up against the side of the box. Another couple had buds just coming. So the 3 that were already growing in the boxes, I brought home and potted up. Plus I FINALLY got the rest of mine potted up that I had ordered back in November. They were all growing crazy directions, too. In fact, one of them was blooming—barely poking out of the burlap sack it came in! I’ve got 2 more of those almost ready to bloom.

Not to mention all my anthurium from last year that I’m trying to keep alive with varying degrees of success, and all the aloe vera plants left from my sale last spring. I would love to have some houseplants with pretty leaves that I could add to arrangements. Think how pretty the ivy would be! Just have to keep the blessed things alive.

What houseplant tips do you have for me? I’m all ears!

If you want a planter, let me know! They’re fun to make and then you get to take care of them! 

Hee hee.

Flowers in Winter--2 Grow Kits for You

Just checking in from snow valley over here! Since Thursday, we have gotten around 3 feet of snow, with more falling every day! We have been shoveling over and over, and the kids spent 2 glorious days building a 5 foot tall fort, using plastic toy bins as snow brick makers. We did make a trip down to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner, but other than that, we have stayed home and enjoyed not having to go anywhere!

Did you get large amounts of snow this weekend as well? Tell me all your stories!

So, I am very happy to report that whilst I have been snowed in, I have taken the opportunity to get some grow kits ready and available for sale! If you’re like me, those cold winter days last so long! I miss the color and change of watching flowers grow! I crave the beauty. Growing flowers inside during the winter helps me do better emotionally and helps fill in that gap a little bit.

If you’re on my email list, you’ve already seen my tips for growing amaryllis. Amaryllis are the great big bulbs from South Africa or Holland, with big, waxy-looking blooms at the top of big thick stems. They are so beautiful! If you missed the email, send me your email address and I’ll get a copy over to you.

I won’t say too much more about amaryllis, then, except that this year’s gift boxes have arrived!! These are the Dutch amaryllis, which should flower 8-12 weeks from the time you pot them up. The colors available are: orange, pink and white (mostly pink with a white stripe down each petal), apple blossom (more white than pink), red, white, picotee (white with a thin red edging on each petal), and one red-and-white striped. I’m so excited to have these!

I’m selling them for $24 each, and each one includes the bulb, a pot, and soil to pot it up with, all inside a beautiful box with instructions printed on one side of it. These make wonderful gifts for clients, employees, coworkers, or family members. Call or text me to reserve your color preference early! There’s only 2 of each color, except for the red-and-white striped—that one only has one. 

I’ve also put together some delightful Paperwhite Daffodil Grow Kits this year! I’m excited about these, because this is such a fun and easy project! These would be great gifts for your tween or teenager, siblings—even neighbors or friends. Even younger children could do this, with some adult supervision and help. Once you get it all set up with the rocks and the bulbs, all that is required is topping off the water as needed. It’s so fun to watch them grow!

Part of what makes these kits special are the rocks. I was able to purchase polished river rocks from JH Rocks, a little business my oldest son has ventured into—selling polished rocks and semi-precious gems. So much love and care have gone into these! So you’re not only supporting my small business, but his as well, by purchasing one of these kits.

Along with the rocks, it includes 3 bulbs wrapped in festive tissue paper, growing instructions, and of course, a vase to put them in. Very affordably priced at $18 each.

You can find these in my online shop on this very website, or call or text me directly: 801-845-8217.

I don’t usually use this blog as a commercial, so thanks for your patience with me on that score! I am just so happy to have these grow kits available! Having flowers growing inside makes such a big difference for me in the winter, as far as my overall happiness goes, that I am excited to have them available to share with you, too.

Now, get out there and make the biggest snowman in all the land!!

Where Do I Go From Here?

We have gotten several nights of frost, as the weatherman predicted. My field flowers are all done, and just a few in my flowerbeds that are extra tough are still hanging on. So, you may be wondering—what happens now? Am I all done until next spring?

Well, no. In addition to the usual fall and winter farming activities: planting shrubs, perennials, and bulbs (fall); and planning for next year, along with seed-starting later (winter), I still have a few plans up my sleeve for flowers throughout the winter.

I have made some planters this week for one of my regular clients—indoor, houseplant-type planters, like this one: 

I will order amaryllis bulbs and pot them up to bloom inside when it’s icy outside, like these:

I also have plans to order more paperwhite daffodils which are dead easy to grow from bulbs, sitting on your windowsill. I will put them into gift kits, complete with bulbs, container, rocks, and instructions, which will go on sale around Thanksgiving.

They’re so tall!

Then, as well, I still have my little booth over at the Morgan Mercantile, which you can see in some of these photos, in which I also selling unique and interesting vases and pitchers (some vintage, some just pretty), framed flower quotations, and handmade wreaths.

In addition, I will still be taking special orders for arrangements, for which I will purchase flowers as necessary. As I continue to hone in on the direction I want to take this business, that will be reflected (I am sure) in the list of fall/winter offerings. As for now, that’s the plan. Always something to be working on, which is just how I like it!

Planting, Planting, Planting

 I have got more planting to do than a….than a flower farmer in May! Yeah. That.

So you see, I went shopping at a plant nursery last week…and I came home with several treasures. Namely, lady’s mantle x 4 (or was it 5? the memory fades) for my front shade beds, white echinacea x 3 for the East side skinny bed, and oh yes, some Jupiter’s Beard (x 3 as well) that I found a place for in back. J & J Nursery helped me face up to reality, in their own way. You see, wandering those aisles of big healthy plants, I realized that my teeny-tiny echinacea seedlings are never going to bloom this year. It’s a fact, and I faced it right there on the gravel. Maybe, if I keep them alive long enough to get them in the ground, they could possibly bloom for me next year. However, that doesn’t help me at all THIS year, now does it? That’s when those 3 white ‘Fragrant Angel’ echinaceas went into my cart. Not that my purchases NEED justification, but let’s just say the other plants were also related to seed-starting failures, and move right along, shall we?

This very planter, as a matter of fact.

Then later on, I went to Lowe’s—because I had to, you see, to get some things for a planter I was being paid to put together. Had to. That’s right. You can nod your head here knowingly, because did I ONLY get the plants for the planter? Well no! Of course not! I found a beautiful honeysuckle bush that I really needed, as well as some perennial bachelor’s buttons that were the color I’ve been looking for (‘Amethyst in Snow’—white with purple middles, if you must know), and 3 gorgeous geums (‘Mrs. Bradshaw’) in a brilliant reddish orange. The bachelor’s buttons were on the clearance shelf, and so they were only $3 each! Just between you and me, the ones I chose didn’t look all that bad. They’re going to be fine. Once I get them planted.

So you know, planting! It’s always bad for the image (and the wallet) when you buy plants and leave them to languish and die on the porch. I am quite happy to report that so far I have gotten everything planted that I bought, with the exception of the bachelor’s buttons.

THEN Thursday—oh, this was so awesome! Thursday, my friend from up the street called me and said she had a bunch of extra flowers she was pulling out of her flowerbeds, and wanted to know if I could use them. YAY! So she brought over large clumps of irises, tulips, daffodils, daisies, and I don’t even remember all what else. Linnae’s Home for Unwanted Plants—Now Accepting Donations!!

I have my work cut out for me this weekend, for sure! Especially since, before all this plant bonanza, my original plan for this weekend was to sow all my warm-weather seeds. I have got cantaloupe, sweetmeat squash, several types of pumpkins, beans, tomato plants, cucumbers, and peppers to find space for in my ever-dwindling garden. I may actually rent a garden box from my neighbor for the pumpkins. Oh, and I guess I’m going to try growing the peppers in the greenhouse, so they won’t take up any garden space. We may have to get creative and grow the cucumbers up a trellis or something.

Flowers I still need to sow include: celosia, sunflowers, and the ornamental grasses. Possibly others. It seems like I’m forgetting some.

The biggest obstacle to planting for me right now is the WEEDS. I have made good use of the hoe this spring, and have cardboard down in some of the aisles, grass clippings elsewhere, but there are still sections of the garden that the weeds are getting the best of me. I have to weed for 45 minutes to plant for 10! It’s frustrating. My goal has been to have every bit of bare ground covered, but I have fallen short of that. So that has to be part of my planting plan. Weeding—always and forever—weeding, then planting.

Also, we went to Lowe’s again this week for other stuff, and I did not even set foot in the garden area. Are you so proud of me? I was proud. I just know if I go over there, I’m going to find something to buy. It helped to have piles of plants at home waiting for me to get them in the ground! Erm… didn’t help enough though, I suppose, because our next stop was Costco, and their plants are right out in the middle of the store! Totally unavoidable! So….I purchased one their 6 packs of geraniums. Yep. I have already totally justified it and will plant them today. So let’s just be done here. Moving on!

Thinning Progress

You can see space between them! Not for long, though. They will grow to fill that in pretty fast. That whole blue bucket there is the Bells I pulled up.

Oh, as an update on the Bells of Ireland: I was very firm and Set Some Boundaries out there on those self-seeded Bells. I made an aisle on either side with the hoe, I chose one every 6-12” apart or so to be the Chosen One, and pulled out all the rest. I’m telling you, I even thinned some further that I had left to grow initially. I yanked with determination and filled up a whole weed bucket with them. (Poor things.) I have decided, though, that the first pass is the hardest. The ones that I had already thinned were doing so much better than the others! That made it easier to get down to business on the rest.

Next up for thinning: bachelor’s buttons and pennycress.

I wish my Queen Anne’s Lace would grow so I could thin it out. Alas, I may need to re-seed it. It likes cool weather, but I read recently that you can sow it anytime up until it’s 85 degrees outside. Well, with our cool rainy spring this year, we haven’t hit 85 yet! So there may still be time.