Robin, Author at Bumblebee Blog

Bzzzz May 2nd, 2008

I used to be afraid to cut the flowers in my garden to bring indoors. It was a classic case of flower fear.

Other people, I have heard, experience the same phenomenon. It is the fear that if you cut the flowers in your garden, it will take away from the outdoor beauty. Who wants a bald, flower-free garden, right?

For me, the flower fear ran so deep that I would buy flowers every week, even in the summer, to use in the kitchen, family room, bedroom and bathrooms rather than cut the ones right outside my back door.

But I want my own fabulous flowers in the house, darn it. And I also want my garden filled with an abundance of flowers. In short, I WANT IT ALL!

Why can’t I have it all? Martha Stewart has it all. Oprah has it all. Heck, Angelina Jolie has it all. Angelina even has Brad Pitt! Heck, if she can have Brad Pitt, why can’t I at least have indoor/outdoor flowers? Is that asking too much?

Last fall year I decided it face my flower fears.

I added my own little cutting beds so that I could give myself permission to invite some of them indoors. I stocked up on tulip bulbs. Red tulips, purple tulips, white tulips, pink tulips. Tulips, tulips, tulips. I think I must have been a bit single-minded the day I was stocking up on bulbs, because I came away with about six dozen tulip bulbs and very little of anything else.

If my selections lacked in imagination I can’t say that the execution was especially stellar either. I managed to get about half of the tulip bulbs planted in October before freezing rain and demanding clients drove me indoors. The unplanted tulip bulbs languished in a bucket in the garage. Every time I walked past the bucket to my car the little florist in my head would say, “You’re horrid! You’re killing the flowers. You’ll never have flowers in your house. You don’t deserve flowers in your house!”

The little florist in my head is mean. And sometimes she says bad words.

Finally, one warmish day in February I headed outside with the offending bucket of bulbs and dug them all in. I had no expectation that they would grow. After all, fall is the time to plant tulip bulbs, not February. But at least it shut that miserable little florist voice down for a while.

Amazing, but true, all of the tulip bulbs, including the February planted bulbs, grew and bloomed. And I’ve been cutting and cutting to keep the house tulip-filled for about a month now. I have another bunch of summer blooming flowers all planted and will be inviting them indoors as well.

I still don’t have Brad Pitt. And that miserable little florist in my head still nags at me about my arrangements. But I believe you can say I have recovered from my flower fears.

Posted In: Flower Arranging, Flowers, Gardening

17 Comments

Bzzzz April 29th, 2008

It was here, but somehow I missed it…

I suppose with all the travel this month I did, in fact, miss two full weeks of April in the garden. I’m seriously behind. I have little seedlings in the family room that I am desperate to take outside. I have blueberry bushes to transplant. Heirloom tomatoes are on their way from California. There is still some tidy-up work to be done.

Nevertheless, those plants seemed to have carried on without me. So here’s my April pictorial update.

The front flower beds are on the north side of the house, so they don’t get much in the way of sun. I’ve been trying to morph them away from traditional landscape plantings toward more of a true garden setting. It’s slow going as I experiment with plants that work…Oh, and find the time.

Solomon’s Seal, Azaleas and Impatiens

The azaleas have finally started to take off, as has the Solomon’s Seal. The hellebores are extremely gorgeous–So much so that I’m thinking of taking advantage of the hellebores sale from Hersonswood Nursery. They have two hellebores called Kingston Cardinal and Gold Finch that would be fabulous planted in a large group, especially since hellebores seem to like living here at Bumblebee.

Hellebores and Foo Dogs

The Dead Nettle (awful name/fabulous plant) around my adorable foo dogs is covered in little pink flowers. Tiny little plantlets are coming up around the plant through the mulch.

Dead Nettle and Hotei

I love the Dead Nettle so much that I planted a mass of it alongside the driveway–another shady spot. The whole area is in dire need of some planning and planting. It’s a very large area, which means a LOT of plants. I’m still scratching my head about how to tackle it.

Side Garden Birdhouse and Foam Flower

A few years ago my then-early-teenage son took it upon himself to whack down a small tree by the driveway with a machete. Typical boy. I left if there as I pondered what to do with the side garden. When I saw this birdhouse from Walpole Woodworkers, the little lightbulb over my head went off.

Unfortunately, the foam flowers that I planted there last year aren’t as robust as I had hoped. Perhaps they are like the hellebores and just need some time to settle in.

Green lawn and hay field at Bumblebee

Then there’s the lawn, which you heard about before. This is the view from the front of the house. Although you read a lot about lawns not being practical, when you have this much room, a lawn is a very practical thing indeed. If we ever need to have an impromptu football game, there’s room to pass the ball. And I can cut it in less than an hour when I have a working riding mower. Since there’s not a chance that I’ll ever be able to garden all this space, a pretty green lawn works quite well and gives us a nice view up the hill.

After the drought last summer the lawn looked hideous. But with aeration and seeding in the fall–and a good amount of rain this spring–it has bounced back quite nicely.

Back in the Colonial garden, the veggies are thriving. I’ve also been cutting tulips and putting them all around the house.

Herb Garden with Columbine

The herb garden is a bit mangy, but it’s still early. The columbine that I started from seed didn’t do much last year. But this year the columbine is EVERYWHERE. I had forgotten that I tucked a couple of little seedlings in the herb bed last year. But this year–here they are!

And last, but not least, the compost bins are currently under a canopy of Dogwood. Yes, that’s my clothes line. And yes, I use it.