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Getting the Most Out of Your Cut Flowers                            

Posted on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 · Leave a Comment 



Snow is finally here in Cornish Flat. The cardinals and blue jays are providing a little color to an otherwise unremarkable world. The sun is lurking behind gray clouds, and on a good day we get 9 hours of light. I DO miss the colors of summer. I still keep fresh cut flowers on our table – just not flowers from my garden.
 
 

Alstromeria is a long-lasting inexpensive cut flower.

 
Cut flowers are among modern America’s true bargains. For the price of a bottle of wine – or a few of cups of fancy coffee – you can buy flowers that will grace your table for up to three weeks. But there are some things you should know about getting good table-life for your investment.
 
 
Where you buy your flowers may affect how well they last. A floral shop or a good Food Co-op has trained personnel who trim each stem in the store every other day.  And someone who regularly changes the water to keep to keep it fresh. Chain grocery stores probably count on you buying their flowers before the flowers need to be trimmed or their water changed.
 
 
In either case, you should cut off half to three quarters of an inch from each stem before you put them in a vase, and change the water regularly.  Never let leaves sit in the water. Leaves will rot, promoting growth of bacteria, which will impede water take-up. Ask for the little packets of powder that florists provide, and add that to the water to prolong the life of your flowers. A couple of drops of chlorine bleach may work, too.
 
 

Chrysanthemums

 
Keep your arrangement cool if you can. Putting it near a radiator or wood stove will shorten its life. If you’ve invested in roses or tulips, you may wish to move the vase to the entryway or mudroom at bedtime to keep the flowers extra cool during the night.
 
 
Some flowers are better picks than others if you’re on a budget and can’t afford to buy new flowers every week. Here are my recommendations for good cut flowers:
  1. Alstromeria: Each long stem has clusters of 2-inch lily-like blossoms in pinks and reds, with yellow throats. Very long-lived. Great value. Most grocery stores sell them inexpensively.
  2. Chrysanthemums: These come in a variety of sizes and colors, from the huge spider mums to little guys. I love the scent of the flowers –it’s not overpowering, but it’s there if you sniff them.
  3. Lisianthus: These look like silk flowers to me: perfect white, pink or lavender-colored bell-shaped flowers on long stems. Tough to grow in the garden, they are perfect in a vase – I’ve kept them for up to 3 weeks.
  4. Miniature carnations: Each stem has 2-4 blossoms. They come in a variety of colors. Mix dark red “minis” with red roses to make a bouquet of roses look fuller. And even after the roses go to Valhalla, the carnations will still be good!
  5. Baby’s breath. Tiny white pompoms are great on their own, or mixed with colorful flowers. I have kept them in a dry vase for months.
  6. Statice. I grow these for use as dry flowers, which tells you that they really do last forever – even out of water. They come in blue, purple, pink and white. You can put them in a dry vase and they will last all winter.
  7. Spray roses: Instead of a single blossom per stem, these have 2-5 blossoms, giving you more bang for your buck. Will last about a week with proper care.
  8. Orchids: While not cheap, orchids can last up to a month. I love dendrobiums, though they are not common, even in floral shops. Cymbidiums have bigger blossoms but also last extremely well. And of course you can buy potted ones, which bloom even longer and can be coaxed to re-bloom next year if you put in the effort to keep them happy.
  9. Kangaroo paws: These Australian natives are fuzzy and cute. They come in pinks, reds and browns, and last very well. Not every florist will have them. I grew then in a pot on the deck one year and love them – like Teddy bears on a stem!
It’s possible to change the colors of cut chrysanthemums. Here is what has worked for me:  leave a few stems of a white mum out of water for 12 hours, then cut off 2-3 inches and put it in water with food coloring. Try it with a few stems, to see if you like the results. Put 8 drops of food coloring in a glass with just an inch of water.
 

Baby’s breath is a good filler all or lovely by itself.

 
When I tried it with blue food coloring, my white mums had turned color – but not the true blue I wanted, more of a ghastly greenish blue. Still, if you want to have some fun with your kids, this is an easy way to show how water and dye move up a flower’s stem.
 
Everyone loves to receive the gift of cut flowers, even guys. So treat your loved one – or yourself- to fresh flowers this winter. They’re cheerful, and can make winter less oppressive for gardeners.
 
Henry can be reached at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or e-mailed at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
 
 
 

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Putting the Garden to Bed

Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 · Leave a Comment 



Big yellow school buses are on the road again…or at least a few of them. Tree leaves in the swamps are turning red. Frost and cold weather are sneaking up on us. This year I resolve to get my garden put to bed early so that I am not wearing gloves and long johns as I cut back the daylilies and other perennials on cold, wet fall days. Here is what I am doing now – or will soon.

 
First on my list is the need to sow some grass seed. I have places where my lawn was killed when a torrential downpour dumped sand from my road onto the lawn. Fall is a better time to sow seed than the spring because the ground is warmer, and it will germinate quickly. In the spring, seed can rot during cold, wet weather.
 
I will spread some topsoil or compost to improve the soil, then mix it in with a short-tined rake. After spreading seed, I will cover it with a layer of straw. That will help to keep the soil and seeds from drying out, though I will water occasionally if the soil gets dry.
 

Chrysanthemums add color in the fall

Chrysanthemums are for sale now at farm stands, and I purchased a few pots of them to brighten up the front yard. I treat them as annuals, even though some of them are perennial. But the growers cut back the plants as they grow, causing them to branch out and produce hundreds of blossoms on bigger plants. If I let them over-winter, the plants would have some flowers, but never so many as what the professionals produce. It’s worth it to me to buy a few each fall.

 
Mums in pots tend to dry out quickly, so I have been soaking mine in my birdbath. That way the pots suck up water, getting it down deep. I could actually plant my mums in the ground, but I like them in pots on the front steps or in my wooden wheelbarrow. They need water every few days.
 
This is also the time of year when I move shrubs. I recently moved a Diervilla, one called ‘Kodiak’. It was given to me years ago, and it was crowded in between a crab apple tree and a red-veined Enkianthus. I decided it needed more space to grow, and I wanted to expose a stone wall behind it. So I dug it up.
 
This shrub is about 3 feet tall and wide, and had been in the ground more than 5 years. I used a shovel called a drain spade: a spade with a long, narrow blade. I pushed it into the ground at a 45-degree angle in 4 places around the bush. Each time I pushed the shovel handle down to lift the shrub slightly. Then, when I’d gone all around it, I got the spade under the middle of the plant, pushed down hard, and popped it right out.
 
I tugged on the plant, and pulled it loose, roots and all. Some were cut by my shovel, others not. I moved it to its new home, covered the roots and watered well. A week later it looks fine.
 

Never leave the soil bare. Cover with mulch to keep out wind blow seeds

The vegetable garden is winding down, and as each crop is harvested, I weed the row and apply mulch as needed it to keep wind-blown seeds from finding a home. My favorite mulch consists of chopped fall leaves: I run over leaves on the lawn with my lawnmower to chop them, and rake them onto a tarp which I drag down to the vegetable garden. It’s too early for leaves, so I’m using straw for now.

 
When cleaning up the vegetable garden it’s important to keep diseased plants separate from healthy ones (which go on the compost pile). I generally have a location for noxious weeds and diseased plants and do not use that material after it breaks down, or not for many years. It takes a pretty high temperature to kill weed seeds and fungal diseases, and I don’t want to chance getting either one back in following years.
 
I tend to get a little lackadaisical about the perennial flower gardens late in the season. Weeds and grasses have a way of showing up there, and by pulling them now, the work will be less in the spring. Cindy and I have done a pretty good job of mulching the flower gardens this year using a ground hemlock bark mulch, though some weeds push on through. This is a good time to get rid of those rascals.
 
Some gardeners cut back all flowers in the fall, others in the spring. Me? I cut back some, but like to leave some tall perennials with sturdy stems to stand proud above the winter snows. Birds enjoy their seeds. And some beneficial insects need places to lay their eggs, or to use as shelter. On the other hand, there is a lot to do in the spring, and cleaning up the flower beds now reduces the work later on.
 

This harvest sickle will slice through stems quickly and easily

Cutting back perennials with a pair of pruning shears is very tedious work. I prefer to use a serrated harvest sickle that allows me to slice through a handful of stalks in one quick motion. I have one that costs under $10 (a Barnet model BLK 730) and is available from OESCOINC.com, or by calling them at 800-634-5557. Just wear gloves when you use it – it’s very sharp.

 
This is also a good time to divide perennials to make more plants. Peonies, for example, are best divided and moved in late September to mid-October. Dig up daylilies, phlox or asters now the way you would a shrub, and then use a small saw or root knife to divide it into two or more new plants. Most plants like being divided – assuming you give them some compost and a little fertilizer.
 
Putting the garden to bed can be an enjoyable time – so long as you give yourself enough time to do it in small chunks. So get to work before it gets too cold to enjoy yourself.
 
Henry can be reached at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by email at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is a lifelong organic gardener and the author of 4 gardening books.  

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Fall Mums and Asters: Joys of the Season

Posted on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 · Leave a Comment 



Summer is over, officially, and the garden knows it. Tomatoes exist only in the kitchen, many flowers are looking lackluster, and trees are losing their leaves. What’s a gardener to do? I buy color in the form of chrysanthemums and fall asters. And I also enjoy wild asters that appear along the roadside and the edge of my woods.

 

Wild woodland aster

Let’s start with asters. My most comprehensive wildflower reference, The Illustrated Books of Wildflowers and Shrubs by William Carey Grimm, lists 29 native species of wild asters. Walking along a country road recently I spotted at least 5 of them. Some were tall and white or purple, others shorter and pink, purple or mauve. Some had wide rays in their flowers, others had delicate rays close together. And I wouldn’t begin to try to assign names to them. They were all lumped together in my mind as just asters. I like them all.

 

At garden centers there are nice purple asters for sale, short ones, either bright purple or pink. Their tags will say they are perennials, and they are. What the tags do not say is that yours won’t have a hundred blossoms or more next year and hug the ground. They will be taller, probably much taller, and have fewer blossoms.

 

The asters you buy that have been cut back repeatedly in the early summer so that the stems will fork, making them bushier, wider and shorter. Each little stem is capable of producing a blossom. If you want to get something next fall that resembles this year’s purchase, you will need to cut back the plants at least twice in early summer. Me? I leave that to the professionals.

 

Monarch on New England Aster

Of the tall perennial asters, I have some that are 5 to 6 feet tall and produce huge numbers of flowers. These are New England asters, a native species. They produce large amounts of pollen and nectar and are important to our butterflies and bees. Monarch butterflies often feed on mine.

 

In recent times those people who provide us with the botanical names of plants have changed the genus name of asters from Aster to Symphyotrichum . The species name of the common New England aster still remains novae-angliae. Why do they do that? I suppose because they can, and to show that they know a lot more than we do about certain things. Huh.

 

Another aster I love is the bushy or rice-button aster (Symphyotrichum dumosus). Its lower leaves don’t seem to be affected by the fungal disease that so often turn New England aster stems brown. Its leaves and stems are shiny and a very dark green. It is usually the last aster to bloom for me, only starting in late September or early October. The variety I purchased is known as ‘Wesley Williams’. It is 4-6 feet tall, with intensely purple-blue flowers about an inch across. Like many tall things, it needs to be staked to prevent flopping, particularly in rich soils where it grows tallest.

 

Each fall I treat myself to some chrysanthemums. The genus name of mums, by the way, has now changed to Dendranthema.  I don’t buy them at the grocery store in an effort to get the cheapest price. I go to my local farm stand and buy the biggest, most beautiful pots of mums I can. I like to support local farmers and garden centers – and I believe I get better quality flowers from them. Mums that have traveled on a truck from New Jersey aren’t necessarily of bad quality, but those that were grown near home are less likely to have been stressed or damaged by too little (or too much) water.

 

Chrysanthemums

Sometimes I just plunk those mums down, pots and all, on the front steps. Doing so means I will have to water them every hot sunny afternoon, particularly if the mums are growing in peat pots instead of plastic ones. I like peat pots – they don’t use any petroleum products – but they do dry out more quickly than plastic. This is true even if you plant the pots in the ground. The lip of a peat pot will let moisture evaporate and dry out the roots unless the ground is pretty wet. So tear off the lip of the peat pot, or remove it entirely if popping them in the ground.  

 

Mums, like the asters, are sold after extensive grooming and pruning throughout the summer. I once estimated that there were 300 blossoms on one 8-inch wide pot of mums. Left to come back next year, you might get a tenth as many blossoms. What you see when you buy your mums is what you’ll get: they will not grow anymore blossoms, but the buds should all open.

         

Other fall perennials currently in bloom for me include various black-eyed Susans, turtlehead, fall anemones and snakeroot (Cimicifuga ramosa). So I shouldn’t be lamenting the lack of color – besides, it won’t be long before the maples and other trees start their annual show.  

 

Henry is the author of 4 gardening books, and a regular blogger at www.dailyUV.com. He lives and gardens in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. If you want a letter response, please include a SASE.

 

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