Garden Experiment Update

Usually, by this time each summer; I am writing a post about my vegetable garden and how well (or not) it is growing. As we all know, I didn't plant vegetables this year, so this post will be all about the experimental cut flower garden that I am raising.

Early this spring, I planted three types of zinnias, five types of dahlias, five colors of snapdragons, three colors of cosmos, bachelor buttons, and ruby sunflowers in the raised beds that Hugh built for me several summers ago.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I am pleased to report that most everything germinated and is budding out, if not full-on flowering.

I chose varieties of flowers that would (theoretically) bloom throughout the summer, thus making them available for the wedding on August 10th. In order to ensure that they continue to bloom; I have to do periodic cuttings, which feels a bit nerve-wracking (what if I cut too much and they don't rebloom?).

The first cuttings I did were on a dahlia plant that I purchased from the nursery in Hooterville; I was worried about the tubers I planted not producing plants and had wanted to hedge my bets with a slightly more mature plant. That plant has since been swallowed up by the plants produced by those tubers, so I needn't have worried.

When it seemed to be taking an overly long time for my snapdragons to germinate, I again panicked and purchased a couple of plants from the nursery. And, once again, I needn't have worried, as the seeds did, eventually, produce plants, which are now blooming. The picture below is cuttings from the nursery plants, however.

One mistake that I did make was not reading the label on one of the dahlia tubers closely enough. Had I done a better job of that, I would not have ended up with a dinner plate dahlia that will be useless for the wedding centerpieces. The pictures below show the progress of that dahlia, as well as what the garden looked like about a week ago.

I photographed the beds again this past Sunday, and this is the progress that has been made since the photos above...

...including the plethora of blooms that I needed to cut in order to keep things going.

I love the color combination that is happening and Shanti was excited to see that it would compliment the bouquets that we ordered for her and the bridesmaids.

Yesterday, I snapped a few more pictures while doing my morning watering. The bachelor buttons and cosmos are just starting to bloom, and you can really see just how big that dinner plate dahlia that I mentioned above has turned out to be.

The sunflowers are growing really well, and, should bloom right on time (fingers crossed). I am really hoping their color is the deep ruby promised on the seed package, but we'll have to wait and see.

And, that's it for the garden update.

Hugh is still a bit salty over the fact that I'm not pulling cucumbers out of the beds this summer, but, he concedes that the wedding it a titch more important than a cucumber dill salad.