Let's Get Growing

My world has been a colorful place lately; this is due in no small part to the plethora of flowers that had been covering every surface in my office while awaiting placement on the wedding arch I have been working on for the past several months.

Thankfully, I finished it last Friday! And, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!

The effort may have left me with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my right ring finger (thanks to squeezing the wire cutters approximately one billion times), but it was totally worth it for the kids.

On the topic of flowers for the wedding; the seeds that I planted in my raised beds have started sprouting!

I'm not gonna lie: we are still a ways away from actual blooms for the wedding, but; I am cautiously optimistic that I will pull this off.

Also, my peonies have rebounded and two-out-of-three of the old plants are now heavily weighed down in blooms. The lone non-bloomer has budded out, so there remains some hope, there.

Snapdragons

Cosmos

Dahlias

Zinnias

Ruby Sunflowers

Dahlia, actually budding!

In addition to the flowers, I also planted tomatoes and herbs, all of which are doing well.

San Marzano Tomato

Boomer Dog is especially happy about the tomatoes; it's not like he can eat flowers.

Yellow Pear Tomato

Rosemary, thyme, oregano, Thai basil, and a ton of assorted mint

I've been enjoying the fruits of my labors from the front porch, which we officially opened for the season just this past week (I cleaned it and arranged the new furniture weeks ago, but Hugh finally found the time to replace the burnt-out lights and to hang the curtains, which is a must for Porch Nights). 

I'll post porch pictures in the next Friday Favorites post. In the meantime, here are a few things that I am loving on it at the moment...

...cut peonies

...the succulent arrangement that the Man-Cub and Daughter-in-Love gave me for Mother's Day...

...and my succulent planter. A larger-than-usual number of plants made it through the winter in the garage, which meant I only had to replace a few this year. Also, I had a few baby plants propagate from adult plants, which is really fun to see.

All in all, the growing season is off to a great start! Will we miss fresh vegetables from the raised beds this year? Certainly. However, we live less than two miles from a farm stand that is fully stocked, and, at decent prices, so it's not like we will go without. Plus, it isn't every summer that your only son gets married and his future missus requests homegrown flowers 😊