Monthly Archives: October 2017

The late August and September garden

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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman politician and lawyer

I continue to catalog the bouquets from my garden.

The August 26th bouquet for our LUNAFEST chair, Joann. She has done so much for the East Bay LUNAFEST film festival the past 10 years, that delivering bouquets this summer was just a small token of my appreciation for all that she does and continues to do in the community.

The other side of the bouquet.

The August 30th bouquet for Joann.

Close-up of the August 30th bouquet. I love the combination of pink and blue.

We spend Labor Day Weekend with my cousin and her husband, who live in the next town over from our hometown of Terra Bella. I brought cut flowers and made an arrangement for her dining room table. The light hit it just right in the early morning.

Another view of the bouquet in its pretty green vase, with alstromeria, dahlias, and arctotis.

The September 4th bouquet for Joann.

The September 10th bouquet for Joann.

A late bloomer, one of my new favorites is the rudbeckia hirta “Cherry Brandy.” I love the deep cherry red of this hardy flower.

A nice close-up of a scabiosa and a pink and orange zinnia. I love the little star-shaped details in the center of the zinnia.

The September 16th bouquet for Joann.

A close-up of a zinnia and scabiosas.

Zinnias in the planter box in mid-September.

A butterfly on a miniature bi-color rose, which we got from Trader Joe’s. At first the roses turned black and I cut the four different kinds of roses way back. Then they came back, and they are healthy and prolific bloomers. I’m glad I stuck with them and didn’t pull them out and compost them!

David caught this bee visiting our cosmos. We are excited to see so many bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds in our backyard, which is something that we told our landscape architect that we wanted to see with regard to flower and plant selection.

Following the path of the butterfly as it lands in the monster red straw plant in our backyard garden.

The September 20th bouquet for Joann. I like this painting-like photo of this bouquet. The gourd, which my cousin Janet made, gives it an autumnal touch, especially with the red gaillardia x grandi celebration flora, which is right in the front.

A close-up of the September 20th bouquet. The zinnias give it a fall touch.

We had a LUNAFEST reunion dinner at committee member Laurie’s house. Along with a bottle of wine, dessert, and David’s torta, I made this bouquet for the hostess.

I made two bouquets for my friend Soizic. One always brings bottles of wine and bouquets for the hostess. This one features alstromeria, echinacea, dianthus, scabiosa, and amazingly the resurrected dahlias. This is a favorite of mine this season, too.

The second bouquet for my friend Soizic. This one has a lot of zinnias and arctotis. I really like this bouquet, and I consider it one of my favorites of the season.

Looking back on the garden in August

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Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
– May Sarton, American poet, novelist, and memoirist

It’s already October, mid-October at that, and I’m behind in my reportage of my summer garden. Time to play catch-up. Here are the bouquets of late summer, with fall bouquets still in production.

For the August 11th delivery for the Korematsu bouquets, here’s the first one.

Here’s the second Korematsu bouquet, a more colorful and bright bouquet.

A close-up of my favorite, the scabiosa, which for the first time in my garden has been giving me more than a few blooms per season. And oh the beauty of the light yellow dahlia tipped in the faintest of pink hues.

The deep pink dahlia in all its perfection.

And the spiked magenta dahlia.

Dinner-plate size pink dahlia.

Spiked fireworks dahlia.

When I was in Maine, I found some beautiful little bottles, some vintage, at some shops in Brunswick. Since I have a lot of flowers that are short-stemmed but equally beautiful, I thought to highlight them in this display. I put them on a platter and used this display as decoration for David’s office group party in mid-August.

Here’s a close-up of the bottles, holding echinacea, rudbeckia “Prairie Sun,” centaurea cyanus blue, and a pink rudbeckia-type flower.

I made a bouquet for David’s office group party, as well. Cosmos, dianthus, and alstromeria accompanied this bouquet of dahlias.

The platter of tiny bouquets decorated the kitchen table alongside a plate of Isabella’s homemade vanilla iced scones.

A pair of swooping swallows, made in Haiti by artisans using reclaimed steel oil drums, appreciate the tiny bouquets I made that was placed on the tables in the patio for the party.

The August 15th bouquet is spilling over in its splendor, with white snow puff cosmos and monster red straw flowers.

For the August 15th ECHS bouquet, I added a platter of tiny bouquets.

The next day, August 16th, I had a lot of flowers to cut, so I made this bouquet for our LUNAFEST chair, Joann. The scabiosa, monster red straw flowers, and zinnias were in abundance.

Another view of the August 16th bouquet for Joann.

One more view of the August 16th bouquet. I confess I’m not great at curating these photos. This one shows off the pink zinnias.

This August 18th bouquet for the Korematsu auction winners is one of my all-time favorites. I like it because it’s so horizontal and bountiful.

Here’s a top-down close-up with zinnias, rudbeckia, echinacea, scabiosa, cosmos, and pink arctotis (African daisy).

The other side of this horizontal bouquet.

The second August 18th bouquet for the other Korematsu auction winner.

A close-up of this second bouquet, featuring rudbeckia, echinacea, arctotis, and zinnia.

I have fallen in love with the zinnia, so I’ll be growing more of these long-lasting flowers next year, even if they are annuals.

The other side of the second bouquet.

The August 20th bouquet for Joann.

A close-up of scabiosa columbaria, “flutter deep blue.”

The other side of Joann’s bouquet.

A variety of African daisy, another new flower that I’ve introduced to the garden.

Joann invited me to attend the El Cerrito City Hall’s time capsule celebration, one of the many events commemorating the city’s centennial. So I made a bouquet to take to City Hall.

A close-up of one of my favorite dahlias in the August 24th bouquet.

The bouquet at City Hall.