Zinnias in Full Bloom

I have always thought that fresh flowers were good for my spirit.

During the winter, I love to buy a bunch and split it between the kitchen and the bedroom.

I love to add a drop of oil to the water.

Sometimes orange and sometimes something herbal.

I have a Pomegranate oil that is wonderful for a vase of flowers.

My favorite flower to plant and cut is a Zinnia. Zinnias are colorful and hardy.

They are annuals. You have to plant them every year.

If you strip off the leaves when you put them into a vase,

and change the water each week,

you can make a bouquet of fresh zinnias last two or three weeks

in the house.

These are State Fair Zinnias from Cook’s Greenhouse in Lindon. We buy them every year and devote an entire row in the vegetable garden to them. We plant around Mother’s Day after all worry of frost is past and have profusion by the middle of July. 

Many other favorite cutting flowers are also profuse at the same time like daisies and bachelor buttons and some kinds of yarrow. Also in the row with the zinnias we plant a few Dahlias. They come in lots of colors.

This year they are soft salmon and dark purple. 

Heather came to harvest a bouquet today.

She kept saying that they were too pretty and perfect to cut. 

Yes. They are very pretty but they are such a perfect flower to bring inside and that is why they were planted. They will keep growing and producing blossoms until the cold gets them, likely in October. It will be about the time that the pumpkins are harvested.

 

Here are a few yard flowers for the house.

I snipped here and there around the yard. In the small vase are the salmon and dark purple Dahlias, along with the Zinnias. 

Through the years, the cutting flowers in the yard have changed with the availability of sunshine. As the trees have grown, the types of flowers we have planted  have had to change. Zinnias need sun. That is why they are now planted in the middle of the garden, in full sun. 

Do some thinking about what kind of flowers you love and

plan a little cutting garden.

Most cutting flowers with bright colors like the sun.

If you are worried about finding the plants ready to put in the ground next spring, cut the Zinnia blossoms at the end of the season and save the seeds in a Zip-Loc bag. Scatter them around in the spring under a little layer of dirt and water.

-Grandma-