Mother Nature...

Mother Nature has certainly thrown as much as she possibly can at us this year.  From freezing cold temperatures lasting days or weeks (unusual for the extended freeze in this area) ... to an unseasonably warm Spring.... to rain that lasts for weeks and causes widespread dangerous flooding.. not just the washing out of a few flower beds... and maybe because of all of these ups and downs it has been hard to remember what beauty we have still been able to bring out of the gardens.

Flowers that thrived this time last year (rananculus) have rotted out this year ... Flowers that didn't do a gosh darn thing last year (snapdragons) are four feet tall and just exploding with color this year.

Starting with the tiniest of seeds in the tiniest soil blocks...

Or bulbs that were planted in the fall... of daffodils I had never even dreamed of...

To the first of the riot of color coming forth in Spring

And now... still hanging onto spring but slowly heading into Summer....  why do I keep saying that I don't have any flowers?

And where are those 27 mums going that arrive this week?

Dahlias and Mums are on their way...

Hmmm ... so I started this post in February and we are now June... time flies when you're having fun!  Below is a peak at my overwintered and brought back to life dahlia tubers...

While this still may technically be Winter, there is much planning (and purchasing) for the later part of the season on this flower farm.  We've just ordered 37 dahlias and 27 mums for our summer and fall flower harvesting.  While those numbers may not sound like much to more established flower farms, this is a huge time and financial investment for us.  I ALWAYS start (or order) more flowers than I have space to put them in the ground... and these babies will be arriving in mid-April at the time of our projected last frost date.  Hopefully that ground will thaw out so we can get some more beds dug!

But this is an investment that we hope will help grow our business. If taken care of properly, we can dig up the dahlia tubers in the fall, overwinter them, and divide them in the Spring, and likely we will have more than we started with.  So those 37 dahlias can be twice (or more) the next year!  The more we learn about growing specialty cut flowers... well we always need to learn more.  This was our first year overwintering dahlia tubers and we're not so sure we were successful.  Our storage area may have gotten too cool and dry.  So for now we have taken them out of their hiding places and have potted them up and are patiently (or not so patiently) waiting to see if there might be some life left in them.  Hopefully these southwestern facing windows will start to warm and work their magic... and hopefully our little munchkins will keep their hands off!

And .. update... first dahlias coming out now....

There's still hope...

I was so excited this Fall by how healthy all of my hardy annuals were looking when I put them in the ground and then again a few weeks later.  And then.... well, we've had a crazy winter with extended below freezing temperatures and vicious winds that have had these snaps looking like this ...

And now, like this...

I see all sorts of lovely branching and green around the base of most of these so I'm still holding out hope that I can salvage some of these beauties and I'll have my first real harvest of Madame Butterfly Bronze. 

Obviously only time will tell, but in the meantime, I've started my next batch of seedlings which include some Chantilly Yellow Cream Snapdragons as well as Peach, Cheerful White and Rainbow Stock.  Remembering these stock from last year and how I excited I was that they did something... and that FRAGRANCE!  Sweet and spicy and oh so intoxicating:

But first, we shall have crocus, hyacinths, daffodils and tulips... after all, it is still January!