Fifth Ave Flowers

The most vivid calendula I’ve grown. Cool season flowers are always so magical. Everything else is fading in the cool nights we’ve been having, but these will bloom awhile longer. I’m not sure what the grass is. I found it among the weeds in the garden and I’m loving how much it glows in the moonlight.

Seasons are changing 🌼

Another April bloom 🍃

Sometimes gardening success takes years! I’ve tried to grow these poppies for three completely unsuccessful years. However, this year I managed to get two plants to germinate and survive our crazy Iowa temperature swings! This little flower is still looking beautiful and it brings me so much joy. I can’t wait to share flowers with you all this season.

The opening paragraph from a book I’ve been enjoying this winter:

“Gardening is an inherently paradoxical activity. It means existing at the point of tension between being and doing, between accepting the majesty and might of nature, and striving to imprint a human hand upon the earth. To plant a seed is to hope and to invest, but to avoid going entirely mad, this has to be done with an acknowledgment of the fact there are no guarantees. And that we can only do so much. The movement of a garden sets it aside from other art forms; no stasis is ever reached, there is no ‘finished’. There is always weeding to be done or a border to be addressed. There will always be chard running to seed or a hedge threatening to claim its birthright as a row of trees.

To grow and to garden is a radical act of rebellion. To rest, to rest in a garden, to drink in its beauty and its complexity and its imperfection and to just be-this is where true revolution lies. And this book is a call to arms. By all means do, but promise me that you will also just be. Notice. Acknowledge. Know the sensuality if a garden that is truly loved.”

-Grace Alexander, Grow and Gather: a gardeners guide to a year in cut flowers

Setting my garden goals for this year and finding replenishment there definitely sits at the top of my list.

Merry Christmas friends 🌟