Tulips and Poppies for Spring

We have blast off, folks!  

As I am busy trying to get things set for retail sales at The Little White Flower Cottage here at Butternut Gardens, I am also working my "real job" of getting seedlings planted, and, yes, actually cutting flowers.  

Here are some of the goodies bursting into bloom right now.

Tulips are going to my local retail partners for the weekend! Some bright, and some more subtle. 

Slow Flowers movement continues to grow

As it says, "Love a Farmer!"

As it says, "Love a Farmer!"

I am thrilled that Debra Prinzing invited Butternut Gardens to be part of her wonderful article on the local cut flower movement - or Slow Flowers movement - that is included in the recently-released issue of Southern Farm and Garden magazine. Debra is a major advocate for American flower farming and locally-grown flowers. For years, among other things, she has offered weekly podcasts related to the Field to Vase movement. Southern Farm and Garden is an absolutely gorgeous publication - one you want to read and view time and time again. It is available through subscription or at Barnes and Nobel stores. Please look for it.

Want to learn how to make a gorgeous Spring Centerpiece?

Last night's workshop was jam-packed with gorgeous spring flowers and, boy, was I ever amazed by the finished designs my "students" put together.  When teaching, I take a step by step approach and then stand back and let the creativity and experimentation take over.  There is always, always, always a moment when I look at the designs and freeze because the beauty and individual expression of design simply overwhelm me.  Happened again last night!

With the upcoming holiday weekend in mind, I challenged workshop participants to craft a design which could be lightly freshened up for next weekend if they are hosting a gathering. We put in bonus potted pansies which enhanced the designs and can be planted outside for months of enjoyment. Thank you, wonderful flower friends, for the courage to give this a try. I hope you are proud of your creations. I know I sure am! I hope to see you again at a future workshop.

DIY Wedding Flowers - a workshop recap

As mentioned in my last post, I am looking forward to a great season of growing AND an expanded workshop and speaking schedule. I'm totally psyched!  Today was a fabulous day for my first DIY Wedding Flowers workshop for 2016.  Two more are scheduled - one in June and one in September. Please see the Current Workshops page of this website to learn more and sign up. 

Beautiful bouquets put together by some beautiful gals.

Beautiful bouquets put together by some beautiful gals.

You don't necessarily have to be a future bride to participate. Anyone interested in design is more than welcome.  Helping get you started is extremely rewarding and fun for me, whether you are soon to be married, are soon to be starting your own design business, or are simply seeking an educational and therapeutic afternoon with the flowers. Today, I think we covered it all, from flowers, to budget, to scheduling and design. I'd say we really crushed it! Hugs!

Winter Summary

PerennialGardening.jpg

Phlox in the gardens. This year I am branching out a bit more and will offer a nice selection of gardening workshops as well as floral design workshops. 

All in a winter's time-- so much goes on in the offseason around here, it is hardly just to call it an offseason. Starting with the basics, there is seed purchase, creation of planting plans, accounting roundup (who doesn't want to do this one) photo organization and, of course, overall business review and evaluation.

This winter, I have taken a very deep and thorough inventory of myself, as well as the operations of Butternut Gardens, and I am setting a few new and different priorities as a result. I will share with you Revalation #1 here and the first change coming to my operations.  Check back for future posts to see what other exciting and new directions in which I am choosing to go.

Revalation #1

So many times over the years I have been asked to teach others about gardening and basic landscape design as well as floral design. It stands to reason that as a flower farmer I might know a little about growing plants. I have, in fact, been a gardener nearly all my life since some of my earliest chores related to earning  my childhood allowance were garden- (or weed-) oriented. I also studied at New York Botanical Garden, became a Master Gardener trained in Connecticut decades ago, and worked at Oliver Nurseries in the Alpine and Perennial plants department under Priscilla Galpin Twombly. I have come to learn just how much I love teaching others, and how very much I want this to become a central part of what I do.  Face it, growing a whole bunch of flowers (45,000 or so) can become a bit isolating. As much as I love putting flowers in people's hands, I even more love putting knowledge at their fingertips. I also realize it is critical that I find a bit more balance in my life by doing non-farm activities as well as flower-growing. So, this year, I am greatly expanding my workshop offerings. I am also reaching out to groups to provide speaking engagements, and I can't wait to meet so many more gardening and plant fanatics as a result. I will be growing flowers, OF COURSE, but am actually downsizing a bit the amount I grow. I am looking to add to the number of varieties I grow, again, rather than reduce the number of varieties. One of my reasons for doing this is I wish to demonstrate to home gardeners that they, too, can grow a number of flowers for cuts and arrangements, which they likely believed they could not grow. Well, I want them to grow them. Because they can! 

As a result of this one shift in personal and business planning, some of my offseason has been spent updating and fine tuning my course syllabi, as it were, and associated handouts and powerpoint presentations for a host of new presentations and workshops. Boy, has it been both fun and rewarding.  At my age (not old but not young) I reap great joy out of helping others. I am super excited to see how many more people I can reach in my quest to share my gardening wisdom as well as flowers themselves. I am especially interested in working cutting gardens, pollinator-friendly gardens,  and earth-friendly gardens, into others' home landscapes and raising awareness of their value. In the floral design area, I am going to work very hard to hand DIYers the tools to put together most or all of their wedding flowers, and to help others acquire design skills to put great-looking centerpieces on their tables and throughout their homes.  Together we will all grow.

In the next few blog posts I will share more about my other winter revelations and where they will be taking Butternut Gardens and me in the upcoming season and beyond.

For now, Happy Gardening All!

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF - JOIN ME!

Chopped leaves forming a mulch for perennial beds at Butternut Gardens. Shagbark hickory is a main contributor, hence hickory nut hulls are part of the mix in this area of the farm.

Chopped leaves forming a mulch for perennial beds at Butternut Gardens. Shagbark hickory is a main contributor, hence hickory nut hulls are part of the mix in this area of the farm.

I live and farm in a suburban area where “lawn-scaping” is a major part of the surrounding neighborhood’s landscaping. That being said, come this time of year, the number of leaves, which falls astounds me. Other than the few that scoot into the inner confines of foundation plantings, most leaves are carted out of the neighborhood, and out of surrounding neighborhoods, to be deposited in the composting area of the town dump. There they are mixed with wood chips, grass clipping, and other ingredients, to create future mulch and compost mixtures. I grew up on 30 plus acres of beautiful property. Leaf storage was never a problem, and my family enjoyed many turns on the lawn mower naturally chopping up and mulching leaves on our lawn back into the ground.  Although I yearn for a larger parcel again, here I farm on my suburban lots making the best of every inch.  For a number of years, I too, having limited space for leaf storage, moved many leaves offsite. This year, I changed my ways, and I have to say, I am nearly giddy with this change. This year just about all of my leaves stayed right here for current and future use. To handle this year’s garden cleanup I implemented a four-step system using common homeowner equipment. I desperately want to share this methodology with you because I KNOW there are many others like me whose land and gardens could benefit from saving their leaves. 

My go-to equipment for keeping my leaves on site: weed whacker, leaf blower, and hand mower.

My go-to equipment for keeping my leaves on site: weed whacker, leaf blower, and hand mower.

My first step of leaf clean up was to cut down leftover plant stems with my weed eater and create two separate piles of clippings. Stems from Phlox or other plants, which had any sort of mildew or unwanted disease condition were piled for removal. These I do not wish to retain on site. Stems in “clean” condition are being kept on site to be incorporated into future compost.  Using a weed eater with a metal cutting edge, rather than a string type trimmer, allowed me to easily cut thicker stems of perennials, such as Baptisia, Asters, and Peonies with one easy walk down the aisles.  I may very well do a second run down the aisles with hand clippers a bit later this season to remove any stem material closer to the plant crowns. 

With beds cleared of plant stems, I started up the leaf blower, gently steering leaves out of the beds and onto the grass pathways between the flowerbeds and onto the lawn more generally surrounding the beds. I also corralled leaves into a large pile on my paved driveway and into a couple of piles on site.

Leaf mulch on perennial bed.

Leaf mulch on perennial bed.

Step three was to bring out the hand mower. By making repeated sweeps over the leaves in between the rows and also in a couple of piles, including the pile on the driveway, I soon created a much more compact and manageable leaf situation.  For step four I brought the leaf blower back to life.  For a second time I walked through the grass pathways between the garden beds, and with a very, very gentle touch, I blew some of the shredded leaves back into the beds, and left some on the grass. From the larger piles of shredded leaves, I carted wheelbarrows full to layer on top of some of the garden beds. Most exciting to me, I still have some good size piles of shredded leaves, which I will combine with all of the green cuttings I have during next year’s growing season, to help build next year’s compost. To this mixture I will also add the stems from the plants that I cut in step one, once I shred them, either with my lawnmower or small chipper. 

So, why did I bother to do all of this?  To me, leaves are like the magic of this world.  It NEVER made sense to me to remove bio-product, only to add bio-product in the form of mulch carted in during the spring.  Granted, my flower harvesting removes a certain amount of plant material, and thus requires some periodic amendment, but the gardens will be much closer to self-sufficient if I keep what grows here right where it belongs.  In the wooded areas of my childhood property, tree leaves fell and stayed. New trees grew and flourished with no fertilizers added. The system worked well! 

A leaf is a gold mine to my plants. Just think about it: a tree’s roots go a lot deeper into the soil than I could ever dig or “double dig” and all the minerals available to those roots have become available to the leaves, which are now sitting within range of the roots of Butternut Gardens’ future flowering plants. Yahoo! Another gain?  Mycohrhizae.  These root fungi, found in the soil, in leaf mould (partially decomposed leaves) and, hopefully, on my plants’ roots, are extremely beneficial to my plants. In undisturbed soils, these mycorhizzae send out stringy white runners for, in some cases, miles if the soil is not disturbed! This lets plants take up soil nutrients from a far greater area than they can take up in the limited areas in which their roots grow. In this plant/mycorhyzzae relationship, plants give a considerable amount of its manufactured carbohydrates to  mycorhizzae as a source of energy.  As leaves decompose, you may very well find white stringy material, which is part of the mycorhizzal system. Next year, as I noted above, I will attempt to incorporate some ofmy leftover leaves into various compost mixtures, which will find their ways to more of my annual plantings.

Mulched leaves, and some which blew into my leaf mulch pile, and are not chopped up, showing fungal activity (white ares) starting to decompose the leaves. This leaf mould stage is one step in the decomposition process and is particularly beneficial…

Mulched leaves, and some which blew into my leaf mulch pile, and are not chopped up, showing fungal activity (white ares) starting to decompose the leaves. This leaf mould stage is one step in the decomposition process and is particularly beneficial to perennial plants, shrubs and trees.

Over the years, I have amended my soil with products brought in from offsite, and I might still have to do this a bit, but I can’t wait to see how fertile and fluffy my leaf-amended soil will be come spring, and I feel so great about knowing exactly what is going into my soil and having absolutely no fear that the amendments might contain residues I do not want in the gardens.  I hope you will consider saving your leaves next year and following my 4 easy steps for keeping leaves on site and helping your garden plants. Just remember to please wear eye protection/safety glasses, keep children, pets and other adults completely out of the way when you are using the noted machinery, and to wear ear protection.

Compost, resulting from decomposition of organic material - leaves, grass, plant stems, kitchen waste, and more, is the next step for decomposing leaves, and a great soil amendment. I am saving piles of chopped up leaves for next spring and summer, …

Compost, resulting from decomposition of organic material - leaves, grass, plant stems, kitchen waste, and more, is the next step for decomposing leaves, and a great soil amendment. I am saving piles of chopped up leaves for next spring and summer, so I can mix it with more green material and create valuable compost.

Compost Addition 3 copy.jpg

A compost/mulched product being incorporated into a new row.

LIVING IN, AND LOVING, THE OUTDOOR WORLD

A crow soars overhead. This is not one of the "blackbirds" which this post discusses at its onstart.

A crow soars overhead. This is not one of the "blackbirds" which this post discusses at its onstart.

As I walked the garden rows, I suddenly saw in the sky what looked like leaves, swirling with the wind currents, swiftly falling and then just as swiftly being swept up before yielding again to a downward spiral in what I assumed to be their one magic “mass migration” from tree branch and twig to the awaiting ground. They were not leaves. In an instant the flock of black birds aligned itself so perfectly into a single coordinated pattern of flight. In another instant the group swooped down, turned wings sideways to soar upward again, and then with a more chaotic flap of landing wings settled onto the outstretched branches, now bare of leaves, of the shagbark hickory. With wings folded down, the noise commenced. Nearly piercing and yet, at the same time, with so many individuals contributing, it seemed more like a conglomerated humming. A background sound filling the sky. Chatter. Chatter. Chatter. I could only listen, deaf to its meaning, but knowing it surely meant something.

 

As I garden and farm I slip into the outdoor world daily. So often I must simply watch as an ignorant, but interested, bystander. I lament the times my work forces me to make a big impression on the soil and plants, when I must pull out old plants, which harbor insects or seeds, or when I must dig to plant, and disturb a toad’s familiar territory. I want so desperately to fit in and to not destroy. I find it such a difficult position in which to be, simply by being human.  Every day I try my best to be a good steward of our land and natural resources – animals, insects, plants, soil flora and fauna, water, air and mineral sources alike. It is my goal, always, to softly fold into the gentle arms of this earth, and leave a kiss, because, truly, I love that it shares so much with me every time I step outside.

AUTUMN ARRANGEMENTS AND WORKSHOPS

IMG_2807.jpg

Autumn offers such a spectacular variety of blooms, greens and fruits for arrangements.

Rose hips, grasses, goldenrod all give an autumn thrill to the season's design work. Photo Pat Feher.

Rose hips, grasses, goldenrod all give an autumn thrill to the season's design work. Photo Pat Feher.

Fall workshops are special, indeed. Who wouldn’t want to put together floral designs starring dahlias and so many wonderful autumn specialties?

Rose hips are one of my favorite autumn additions.  They give such a nice airy look, and carry so much the feel of autumn with their striking orange-red berries and loose sprays. Several years ago I purchased some rose plants known for producing nice rose hips – fruit of the rose plant, that holds the seeds. As it turns out, my favorite hips come not from those plants, but from Rosa multiflora (multiflora rose), which seems native because you find it everywhere, but is, in fact, an invasive from Eastern Asia. Because of its reach, it is listed as invasive/banned by the State of Connecticut. I do my share of weeding and/or mowing to eradicate this plant in many locations around my home and gardens. I doubt it will ever by eradicated, sort of like Barberry, which is so widespread as to seem native, but is another Asian plant introduced to Europe and then introduced (and escaped) to the this continent in the 1600’s. Just look for white flowering rose “bushes” along roadsides and field edges throughout the summer and you will see exactly how invasive the Multiflora Rose plant has become.  


This is the time of year when ornamental kales can also take a prominent position in garden-styled arrangements. They nicely cover both sides of the divide between foliage and flower, offering floral color and greenery. For loose and airy additions, go no farther than some of our Solidagos (goldenrods) and asters. I gladly cultivate a number of our native Solidagos and asters for a succession of bloom – each in its own time. One little gem has the most precious small white flowers and delicate branching, and has become my September go-to every year. No, I haven’t bothered to look up its scientific name, sorry. It’s such fun to work into bouquets as a finishing touch.  These, and other accents during other months of the growing season, truly shine and give a garden-inspired centerpiece its full beauty.

All types of grasses and grains are available for autumn design work - perfect for giving your centerpieces the seasonal touch.

All types of grasses and grains are available for autumn design work - perfect for giving your centerpieces the seasonal touch.