How flowers get their colours.

I’m relatively new to growing flowers.  In the past I just saw them as frivolous accessories that were more of a luxury in the garden and demanded just as much attention as the delicious edible goodies that were a much better use of my time.  This was quite a harsh sentiment and now I look at things a little differently.

Flowers in my garden are now a welcome sight as I have decided they are much easier to manage if I treat them like a crop and have a bed dedicated to growing flowers for cutting and bringing into the house or giving to others.

These Sechuan Buttons are as cute as a button with a surprizing zing!

This dahlia is so sweet

Dahlias come in so many wonderful colours

The bees really love my cosmos

I love the deep red of this zinnia

I love the subtle pastel shades of these Zinnia and so do the bees

The  first year was a complete failure for  a couple of reasons – I couldn’t bring myself to cut them as they looked so pretty dancing there in my garden and also I couldn’t bring myself to remove the self seeded tomato and pumpkin plants that ran rampant and pretty much suffocated everything.

This year is much better, although there is room for improvement.  I have had so many wonderful vases of flowers beside my desk as I’m stuck indoors working on my project, but I’ve not had the time to dead head the flowers that remained in the garden.  It seems like such a therapeutic task and I really want to find the time.

I was out there in the garden today admiring all the beautiful colours and had to acknowledge another benefit the flowers bring to the garden – they bring the bees.  There were so many buzzing from flower to flower that I’m sure they stretch their wings to give a bit of love to my veggie flowers.

So the flower garden will stay and with all the wonderful colours they are such a cheerful addition.  It just makes sense to grab a few of those neglected dead heads and collect the seeds for next season.   I grabbed the plumpest looking seed head and took it back to the greenhouse and held it over a container and gave it a good shake and all these wonderful seeds fell out.   And as I watched them fall – it all made perfect sense as to why flowers are so beautiful.

Come again soon – Now we in the first day of April the serious business of clearing the summer crops will really get into full swing.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)