I know, it’s obvious.
But still, one of my favorite things is flowers.
I’m not overly talented with flowers, and the acres I live on seem to be clay so not that easy to get things to grow.
But the few I have, I really love.
This clematis was growing on my windmill when I moved in here. It is OLD now and it’s just bigger and more beautiful every years.
My stand-by Mother’s Day gift from my four daughters is hanging baskets. I have hooks on my porch for six baskets.
This year I have three baskets of Impatiens
And three baskets of Petunias.
I’ve got creeping phlox on the south side of the house, also here when I moved in…36 years ago!
No pictures. And a line of different colored lilies on the south side of my garage…also no pictures–but I planted those and they LIVED. Those things, the phlox and lilies are long faded.
If you look carefully at the petunia picture, you’ll see a pink flower through the screen. It’s a flower pot with pink Geraniums.
I want so many more!!!!!!!! This time of year I want Mums so badly…but wow, I’ve killed so many mums. The combo of clay soil and me letting them die of thirst (okay, more me than the clay, I admit it) but still, I love mums this time of years. And I get to drive by many of them, but have none of my own…that survived.
I’ve got a little bed of daffodils that come up so super early every spring, it makes me believe the winter will finally GO AWAY…AND THEN…..THEY FREEZE OFF.
So not that successful of a flower bed…and I planted those. They don’t die though. No flowers EVER…but the plants live on. So there’s an upside.
Flowers…also…once in a while…my husband shows up with a bouquet of flowers. he doesn’t get me birthday/Valentines Day/Christmas/anniversary gifts…but I do get flowers now and then and I find that very sweet. In the middle of his busy day, he thinks of me and turns aside from whatever he’s doing and gets me flowers.
What’s your favorite flower? Do you grow them or buy them or are you occasionally gifted them? Or do they make you sneeze?
Let’s talk flowers…
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I love roses. My rose bushes have all died. Our soil isn’t the best for them and trees have grown so tall, they weren’t getting adequate sunlight.
I’ve planted so many rose bushes and KILLED THEM the local Earl May Garden Center has my picture up on their wall with a red circle around my face and a red slash through it. 🙁
I also am not good with flowers, but this year my azalea bloomed with an abundance of flowers. My daughters stopped buying me hanging baskets for Mother’s Day because I killed them and now get me either a flower bouquet or fragrance from Bath and Body.
my hanging baskets are excellent this year because my cowboy husband took over watering them. Huh, it really does help. Who’d’a thunk it?
I love daffodils and hydrangeas!!
I think daffodils are my favorite. my MIL had hydrangea bushes, really old bushes. Those old, non-hybrid flowers are all so tough!!!
I love ALL flowers, wherever they are—in vases, in the garden, on the side of the highway. I do not have a green thumb, but my husband does, and so he helps keeps alive any we plant. My youngest is becoming known as “the plant guy,” too.
Once, in the fall, while taking one of my children to college in Lincoln Nebraska, there were wildflowers just GLORIOUS in the roadside ditches….and then I took my sunglasses off and realized my sunglasses really were rose-tinted ‘cuz the flowers weren’t nearly so pretty. 🙁
I love flowers, plants, really anything that grows. Most of my life I have killed every kind of plant/flower that I bought. Since moving into our forever home 4 years ago I have been able to keep a few rose bushes alive outside, as well as Christmas cactus inside. I also have a collection of succulents, they seem to be the easiest for me to grow. I love to be surprised with a bouquet of flowers, though I do enjoy roses,I prefer a mixed bouquet.
Danielle, so it can be learned then? I shouldn’t give up hope? I’m afraid i’m firmly in the ‘Old Dog New Tricks’ phase of life.
Alas I am allergic but I can admire from afar. I do like bleeding hearts.
Debra, My mom was good with plants. She had a bleeding heart bush and I loved those little flowers so much. Such pretty things.
My favorite flower are carnations. My azalea bushes were loaded with blooms this year. They are in front of my front porch.
Bonnie, I had to go look up azaleas and found they were a type of Rhododendrons..which I just love. I’ve killed a few rhodos in my life.
oh so many that return every years – the magnolias, lilacs, lillies peonies, hanging baskets of orange begonias and orange geraniums – then the marigolds near the door to keep flys/bugs away!!
Teresa, I forgot lilacs. I have two lilac bushes I planted which have lived and thrived…….I planted three but still…I’m taking the win. the best smelling flower ever. My MIL, a genius at plants and flowers, always planted marigolds in a border around her garden as a bug repellent.
I love roses and I have only one rose bush left . I have some beautiful azaleas and irises.
both my mom and my MIL had these old, old plants, like the originals before they started hybriding things. and they were so tough. Mom had phlox and peonies and tiger lilies, a bridal wreath. Marybelle, my beloved Mother in Law had iris and hydrangeas and roses. They both said those old-fashioned, original plants were so tough. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m trying to be too fancy. Or it might be the whole water thing!
I love lilacs. I grew up with my mom having two lilac bushes….they smell so good. The church I worked at had one next door so when it was in bloom I could smell it every day as I went into the office. My husband planted one for me but it didn’t grow, not sure why.
nothing in the world smells better than a lilac. I’ve got two bushes and I try to cut flowers and bring them inside just for the scent.
I love tulips and lilacs and I don’t have either. I have tried several times to put them out here but with no luck. I think the moles carry off the tulip bulbs and the lilacs never seem to bloom and they dies on me so I just gave up on them.
I don’t plant new ones anymore Quilt Lady. At some point I begin to feel like a serial killer!
I preordered your book. For flowers I liKe irises and lilies which I have planted. I also like hostas. I prefer perennials with minimum of care needed
Both of my daughters have hosta growing and they’re so pretty and seem tough, too! A plus. I’ve also got two houseplants, a peace lily I got when my mom passed away, and an aloe plants. The peace lily sits outside in the summer and again, my husband has taken over watering and it’s doing well. The aloe? Inside and Not great–but still alive.
Thank you so much, Karijean. I really appreciate readers!!!
I love lots of flowers. Currently I have two Hydrangea plants in my yard. My last home they grew and flowered prolifically. This home (just down the street) they do not flower! We are in a community so the soil should all be the same. My Jonquil, which was a gift, does beautifully, just about 1-2 feet away these hydrangeas. Who knows? I have always loved to receive roses, yellow roses. I also like colorful flowers of most kinds, with me having a garden/yard full of flowers I did not have to care for. I love beauty, but I do not care to spend time cultivating them.
it seems like real beauty should be natural, right? Why should I have to water it? (trying to justify my abuse of plants)
I love hibiscus, roses, crepe myrtles, desert roses, and more! If I buy myself flowers, and I’ve been known to do that, I buy myself carnations, as they last a very long time! I don’t have any hibiscus or roses, as I don’t have a green thumb. However, my crepe’s do really well (which is why I have four of them) on their own. I also have three desert roses that do really well on their own, and I have plumeria’s which do well on their own. They have to do well on their own, or they’re gone! My one magnolia tree does well, too, thankfully!!!
I had to look up hibiscus…my mom had one of those and it was always SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!!!!!! Which always reminded me of my abject failure…thanks a lot mom!
I do like flowers, I am not very good at growing them though.
we should probably form a Black Thumb Club!
I buy those hanging baskets …THEN I repot them into larger pots that are atheist 3-4 inches larger.. it takes some pottingsoil and usually some kind of space filler like crushed plastic bottles. And unless the potting soil contains it I fertilize every 4-6 weeks.
I have had luck planting mums into my flower beds after triming the dead blooms and leaving enough foliage. Dig a couple inch larger hole than potatoes in some potting soil to fill below and around..In the next season, trim back at about Memoril Day and 4th of July…
I live in central Indiana for reference…
So you’re saying it’s possible to do it and I’m just a failure? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I love flowers
amen
Quite a few years ago I decided I like greenery haha… I live in an area where bushes and trees do well year-round so I cut branches and use a couple of beautiful fake flowers made from wood that I stick in the vase. I also make wire strands using beads and buttons. I thread them to stick up so they sort of shoot out of there and sometimes I make garlands to drape around the greenery.
Wow, Rachel…you’re an artist!
I love all flowers, not great with them, but if there is one blooming anywhere in the yard, I have to pick it and bring it in for a vase on my table. Just love them all.
Roses! In the countryside we have 5 different kinds of roses, though I only know the names of “Karelian Rose” (Rosa acicularis) and “Midsummer Fest Rose” or Finnish White Rose (Rosa spinosissima ‘Plena’). “Karelian Rose” doesn’t really smell like a rose. More like some kind of candy. Last year we also had 2 different kinds of violets. I decided to save some of the seeds (ok, a lot of seeds) and see what kind of violets we’d get this year.
Strawberry doesn’t really belong here, but 2years ago mom noticed one with 3 layers of petals had appeared among the normal strawberry flowers. At first she actually thought it was a rose. I took the seeds from one of the strawberries and now there are a couple of strawberry plants with 2 layers of petals in their flowers. Looks like I have to continue breeding them a few more times until I can have strawberry flowers with a lot of petals. Mind you, since mom thought it was a rose, we now call it rose strawberry.
In my neck of woods we had our first frost yesterday, so whatever flowers we still have on the outside won’t be there much longer. I moved the two small pots with violets on the inside. They need light, so they’ll die eventually anyway, but considering mom keeps adding some water to the pots at winter, in the springtime the violets will grow again. I guess also the common harebell (or “Cat’s Bell” as we call it in Finland) which kept on blooming until yesterday next to our well is likely a goner as well. I guess the concrete in the well kept it pretty walm, because usually the common harebells are no longer in bloom in the end of SEPTEMBER.
Minna there is so much flower knowledge in this post…I am humbled. Thank you for sharing.
Dahlias are my favorite flower. I grew 80 dahlias alone this summer. Soon I get to dig all the tubers and prepare them for winter storage. So much work, but I love them! Also, I enjoy growing perennial hibiscus, phlox, Asiatic lilies, black eyed Susan, and many other annuals. Like you, I really enjoy flowers.
Wow, Kathy. So many beautiful flowers. Thank you
I also love flowers! My favorite would be hard to pick. I had a thick carpet of creeping phlox 3 years ago that looked so beautiful in the spring. The drought killed a lot of it, but I got better at watering them last year and this year so some came back. I enjoy the Pink Ladies in late summer. A favorite container flower is calibrochoa. I love the red and purple ones planted together. I also have a dark purple clematis that I love. This year I planted 2 tubular clematis and a wisteria bush by my windmill. I also planted a magnolia bush. I have killed 3 magnolia trees in the last 10 years so I’m hoping a bush is easier!
Denise, I know you’re a talented gardener so I’m sure you’re an ace at flowers, too
I Love Roses they are always so pretty and The Lilac bush it smells amazing !
Lilacs are the best smelling. I’ve never kept a rose bush alive. I feel guilty planting them now.
We have a lilac bush that has become a tree. We also have some old rose bushes. We are both disabled so it is hard for us to take care of any flowers. Thank you for sharing your wonderful pictures. God bless you.
I do love flowers and usually have good luck with them. This year not so much. The weeds were unbelievable. They have taken over everything, even the vegetable garden. I do have daffodils that come up; every year. I also have my to favorites, peonies and irises. They come up every year and look wonderful. The irises will need some work this fall. I have tulips to put in when I rework the beds. When we got our house, we put in so many flower beds (one is 120 feet long) and thy look wonderful. I am now 30 years older and just can’t take care of them. I am trying to get more perennials in to make it a bit easier. Now if I can just get ahead and stay ahead of the weeds, I would be thrilled.