What's Fresh August 8

Sunrise at Bindweed. We woke to a very wet farm, beautiful, but wet, muddy, muddy, wet.

It is too wet to cut flowers--when you lay them down they get muddy and you can not put wet flowers in the cooler--so I will send out availability while Carey and RT work on the new green house.

It finally looks and feels like August on the farm...well in between showers anyway. The good news is that all the big hail storms side-stepped Bindweed--the bad news is that the cooler temps and rainy days continue to delay the sunflowers and they are just dribbling in. We plant several rows of sunflowers each week, May to July, so that as soon as one set of rows is harvested, the next one is ready. Succession planting--the perfect plan to insure an abundant availability unless you are experiencing the weirdest weather ever!

Lemon lime suns just about ready.
Succession rows of sunflowers marching towards the sunrise, muddy road in the foreground.
This is a great shot of the month ahead--grasses in the foreground, the last row of suns planted, another row of grass beyond that and then row after row of sunflowers with the house in the background.

Bloodflower is just starting to bloom and should be excellent this week. Little deep red buds open into a star-burst of yellow on red, small but dramatic.

The second crop of clarkia is ready for harvest. This beautiful flower blooms in coral, fucshia and white on coral stems.

Fucshia clarkia

I am totally infatuated with our lysimachia firecracker. The cooler temps have been great for some of our shade loving flowers that usually struggle in the unrelenting sun and heat. The colors are deep and vibrant and the stems are long.

We grow firecracker as a foliage filler but this bouquet accents the delicate yellow flower that is in bloom right now. The red bee balm echos the red in the foliage, as the purple/blue in the veronica accents the purple bronze of the firecracker leaves. And the white scabiosa and veronica just kick up the volume. (During the summer there is NO time to work in the studio so I get my art fix by painting with flowers. Ahhh...)

I am also enamored with this crop of round leaf sage. Its beautiful soft green fragrant leaves are large and long lasting.

This little collection combines sage with sweet peas, lysimachia gooseneck loosestrife, firecracker and bee balm "blue stocking".

Yep, just a little crazy about the firecracker, it made every bouquet look like a woodland gathering, informal, beautiful and natural.

As always please check your fax and email for full availability.