What's Fresh August 29

Visitors to the farm often seem a bit crest fallen. When they think of a flower farm they imagine rows and rows of flowers in full bloom and full color. They are expecting to see images like the tulips fields in Holland, the lavender farms of France or the acres and acres of Tuscan sunflowers. What they find are rows of green budding plants, then I take them to the cooler and open the door. They are greeted with a blast of cool floral scented air and buckets and buckets of flowers.
Freshly cut and conditioned flowers ready for delivery

It is always a bit of a shock and then I explain that the flower farms photographed are usually seed production fields, fields allowed to flower, pollinate and form seeds. We are a fresh-cut flower farm and our flowers must be cut in the bud stage before they are pollinated so that they do not form seeds and begin the process of dying. If we are doing our job there should be no open blooms. As part of your virtual farm tour this week I thought I would invite you into the cooler.

RT starts cutting flowers every morning before the sun is up. The flowers need to be cut before they begin to react to the sunlight and heat. He puts the freshly cut bunches directly into conditioned water, fresh water with a floral preservative, and then in the barn. I sleeve the bunches, creating coordinated buckets and put them in the cooler.

Bindweed Cooler-cam

The sun is shifting and so has the color palette. Every fall nature sets the scene and fills the stage with warm golden tones that move across the color wheel through every variation of orange and red, oranges, pushing into deep crimsons, violets and spilling into autumnal blues. As a painter I witness the approach of fall in every flower so I am not as surprised when the show is over.

Fuchsia Celosia
How is this for a show stopper! The neon hues of this flower really take things to another level.

Yellow Celosia
Another shot to illustrate the color variations of this crazy plant.

Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia
This beautiful flower illustrates my point exactly--what could be more indicative of the season than this beautiful flower!

Delphinium
We usually get a late season second harvest of delphinium--smaller and less prolific--making it all the more precious.

Euphorbia Marginata
A very cool exception to our very warm color palette, this jade colored euphorbia is a monochromatic bouquet--foliage, accent, flower.

Hydrangea Limelight
Another exception to the rule--the perfect accent to any cool reds, like scarlet and magenta, deep blues and violets--transforming any autumnal palette to a jewel tone array.

Phlox
Another exception and another amazing late season crop. A bouquet of this beautiful flower will fill a room with sweet fragrance.

Annual Scabiosa
We are still harvesting perennial scabiosa in blue and white, as well as the annual scabiosa. Known as "pin cushion" flower the center of each flower is similar to a cluster of pearl headed hat pins stuck in a lacy ruffled cushion. Larger in diameter, the perennial variety has a flatter head surrounded by a single layer of petals. The annual variety is rounder and resembles a ladies hat more than a pin cushion, very similar to something Audry Hepburn wore in the fifties, very frilly.

Tapestry

I am constantly amazed at the variety and beauty of the plant world. This lowly grass is just a work of art.

Please check your email and fax for full availability and call if you have any questions or orders.

What's Fresh August 22

When the availability list starts to shrink instead of grow, I know that it is mid-August and we are nearing the end of our season. Deep sigh...but we still have a few more incredible weeks of full harvest and beautiful flowers. The nights are getting cooler but the days are long and warm, perfect weather for thriving flowers.

Like the humming birds that fill the air I am drawn in by the colors of August. Deep summer flowers are vibrant and lush, the colors rich and saturated, spanning the warm side of the color wheel and accented by the last of the blue flowers--lavender, scabiosa and the last flush of delphinium. Deep crimson and hot coral zinnias call in the hummingbirds and they zip around our heads as we harvest, their urgency infectious and we cut and cut and cut. In the next few weeks we greet a few new varieties and say goodbye to some others.

Celosia
Wow, how is this for a deep saturated color! Only celosia can produce these neon hues--amazing. I love to contrast it with the bronze tones of Diablo and Chocolate Susans, the gold notes of suns or heliopsis and just a touch of verbena or lavender scabiosa. I just love painting with flowers.

Cosmos
This little flower is so popular that even though we have been cutting it for weeks I have not mentioned it here because we have had more demand than supply. It is so delicate and lovely so I can understand why. The perfect white flower to accent all the rich deep jewel tones of August.

Cleome
We are nearing the end of the cleome harvest now. If you have not tried this unusual flower yet I hope you get the opportunity. It is so gorgeous, long lived and has a clean fragrance, very similar to freshly cut cucumbers.

Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia
A cousin to Black-eyed Susans and Chocolate Susans this rudbeckia has the same chocolate kiss center but is surrounded by wine colored petals. Gorgeous--makes me crave a big glass of Cabernet Savignon and some dark chocolate.

Euphorbia Marginata
This is our most outstanding crop of euphorbia ever--I am euphoric over it! Each stem is well over two and a half feet tall with branching side stems that culminate in these beautiful white laced margins. Such a delicate finale for a long strong stem.

Betty's Blues Lavender
We planted three new varieties of lavender this year and this one if my favorite thus far. It has a beautiful deep blue velvet blossom on strong stems. This lavender will not disappear in a bouquet.

Lemon Bee Balm
In the mornings RT has to dodge the humming birds to get to this flower. He says it is their favorite flower on the farm. I like to too, it has a fresh fragrance, ethereal color--lavender melting into jade green--and it reminds me of something Dr Suess might draw.

Limelight
The hydrangea, like so much on the farm this year, have all bloomed late. The limelight is just starting this week but it is really taking advantage of the cool nights and the flower heads are stunning.

Lysimachia Gooseneck Loosestrife
Another sign of August, loosestrife blooms in deep summer. This fresh dainty head opens into a cone of white star-shaped flowers and lasts forever. The deep green leaves are the perfect complement to this lovely flower. I keep handfuls of it in jars all over the house.

Annual Scabiosa Lavender
Gosh I think I have to gush over this scabiosa--it is just lovely. The heads are so unusual, like huge lavender berries accented by a halo of blooms on long stems. My favorite this week.

Annual Scabiosa Red
Here is the sister to the lavender scabiosa and these unopened buds really do resemble ripe berries that burst into clusters of scarlet blooms accented with white confetti.

Sunflowers
The Italian for sunflower is "girasole" which translates as turns with the sun. Each morning I look out the bedroom window and see the rows facing east, greeting the dawn. Each evening the heads turn west and catch the last rays of the setting sun. "Molto romantica"--pretty romantic--this beautiful flower is aptly named.

Teddy bear Suns
So every time we harvest teddy bear suns that song by Don McLean "Starry Starry Night", his tribute to Vincent Van Gough, runs over and over in my head. Vincent is one of my personal heroes and I love his sunflower paintings. As a child admiring his work, I thought that flowers like Vincent's sunflowers only grew in France. Now I can grow (and paint) them.

Verbena Bonariensis
Another "blue" flower, the verbena is in full flush right now and it looks like a lavender cloud floating above the black-eyed susans in the field. I love the contrast this flower provides--the perfect punch to accentuate big golden orange flowers like rudbeckia, heliopsis, sunflowers and zinnias. I always plant some on the south side of our big red barn because I so enjoy this play of warm and cool, red and blue.

Viburnum
The viburnum berries are prime right now and we have a lot of them. They hold very well and are an interesting textural addition. Get them before the birds eat them all!

Grasses:

Explosion Grass
We will be harvesting the last planting of explosion grass soon. It is at the perfect bloom stage--tight lime green heads mixed with riper heads opening into bronze fountains. A very exciting textural element.

Tapestry
Our new millet is called Tapestry. Very much like Highlander millet it has much the same color and texture. Tapestry differs in its seed head structure, rather than one long simple head, the seed head resembles clusters or knots of seeds. It almost looks as if it were braided or woven, hence the name Tapestry. I simply adore it.

As always, please consult your email and fax for full availability.

What's Fresh August 15

Helianthus annus aka sunflowers--the big news is, we finally have an abundance of sun flowers. This week we will have brown center suns and lemon/lime green center suns.
Finally!

I have it from the big boss with the hot sauce that they will be coming on strong now until it freezes.

It really starts to feel like August when the amaranth begins to bloom. We have mini heads of gold and magenta amaranth. Each head is six to eight inches long.

Burgundy/magenta amaranth

The bloodflower is also blooming strongly and in abundance.

The globe thistle is peaking and is just perfect--jade green heads dusted with periwinkle blue.

We have a new crop of lavender--long strong stems, very fragrant.

Sedum is one of my favorites--the foliage can be harvested in early summer, the seed heads, as shown here, in mid-summer, and the colorful seed heads, until frost. What a giving plant.

The sweet peas are incredible! On a normal year it would be too hot for them but they are fantastic--good stem length and so very fragrant.

We have a second harvest of grasses too, foxtail millet, highlander millet and frosted explosion grass.

Yes, zinnias--we have a beautiful crop of zinnias in gorgeous rich colors.

Coral red zinnia--very similar to the red zinnia but warmer, with touches of pink and orange.

Lime zinnia

Orange zinnias

Red zinnias

White zinnias

Yellow zinnias

As always please consult your fax and email lists for full availability.

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.