New Years

Christmas festivities are winding down as the 12th day of Christmas draws near so it's a perfect time to reflect and take a look at what worked or didn't in my garden this past year. So to get a better grasp of cut flower gardening I'm reading the following books: Gardening For Flower Arrangement--Nehrling, The Cut Flower Garden-James; Cutting Gardens--Halpin & Mackey. Hopefully I can glean a few (less than 10) practices that I can realistically achieve. I started with a 4 X 24 foot raised bed this year and have lengthen it to 32 feet and plan to add another one that is 4 X 32 also. The zinnias, sunflowers, and ageratum did well but the celosia and asters not so good. The expansion will permit succession planting and some additional varieties like gladiolas. I've learned a lot about the types of foliage and flowers needed for arrangements and conditioning this past year. I never really got into this aspect of gardening before so its an adventure for me.

The weather was mild this weekend so I spent time working in the garden mostly pulling winter weeds and moving perennials as well as getting most of the plants that I had bought this fall in the ground. The two new flowers in the garden this week are Loropetalum and Snow Drops. They are blooming a couple of weeks early due to the mild winter weather.

I planted a new hellebores 'Red Lady' near a Daphne and noticed the buds are starting to swell.

A hard freeze is forecast for the coming week so thought I'd share this picture of a Bears Breech before it dies back. I've planted this one with hostas and when they die back in the fall Bears Breech fills in.

I also noticed the acuba is budding nicely.

I'm trying to train this acuba into an open branched shrub.  I hope my pruning is more respectfully of the plant than the pruning that my neighbors just gave their acuba. They are very nice people but they should not be allowed to own a pruning shear.

The rose of the week is a carpet rose on the front walk--Roseberry blanket.  This has been a great year for long rose bloom.