Mexican bush sage Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

Easy beautiful flower bouquets from your own garden

If Covid-19 is keeping you at home, why not bring your garden in with you? Even if you only have a small yard, chances are you have everything you need to bring a beautiful, garden-fresh bouquet into your home.

You may think you need daisies or roses or other traditional cutting flowers to create a floral arrangement. You don’t. Have you thought about adding in lantana or salvia or branches from your shrubs? Landscape shrubs with beautiful stems – whether they bloom or not – can stand alone or provide structure, color, and texture to a vase full of flowers.

I used to have a very small bed that I called the cutting garden. In the spring it was full of bluebonnets, larkspur, gladiolas, clematis and roses. Later, it was overflowing with orange cosmos, lion’s tail and zinnias. But you don’t have to have a special cutting garden to cut flowers to bring inside.

When I wander outside to cut flowers for a vase, I walk through the entire garden. Nothing is off limits as I add pretty blooms to my bucket. One of my favorite additions, the perennial, Esperanza, also commonly known as Yellow Bells, (Tecoma stans) adds a hot pop of color with an arching form and soft foliage in any kind of vase. Since they bloom from late spring into fall, I always have something yellow with which to make an arrangement. I also have several colors of lantana throughout the garden, so I never have a shortage of filler.

Don’t forget about your vegetable or herb garden plants, either. Rosemary, parsley, sage and basil are regular additions to my vases. They add beautiful foliage and make the house smell wonderful. You might even forego a fruit or vegetable in favor of the beautiful bloom it produces. I always let my artichokes bloom because I’m smitten with the flowers. I just buy my artichokes at the grocery store. Consider using the lovely blooms of okra or onions the next time you create a bouquet.

Landscape plants for floral arrangements

Indigo spires salvia
Yellow bells
Lion’s Tail
Mexican oregano
Salvia Greggii
Verbena
Pride of Barbados
Crape Myrtle
Lantana
Rosemary
Loropetalum
Japanese Quince
Abelia
Bi-color iris
Native grasses
Pentas
Ferns
Artemsia
Oleander

Almost anything in your garden can be worked into a bouquet. Now that you’ve identified some of your own pretty garden flowers that you’d like to put into a vase, how do you start?

First, cut your flowers and foliage early or late in the day, when it’s cooler and their stems are firm and full of water. In the heat of the day, flowers become dehydrated. Take a bucket of water out into the garden with you, so you can drop them straight into the water after you’ve cut them.

Plants with multiple buds or bloom spikes, like Indigo or mystic spires salvias or larkspur, should have at least one bud open when you cut to ensure that the remainder will open once in your vase. Flowers that grow on individual stems should be cut when fully open.

Use clean, sharp tools like a small kitchen knife or floral snips to cut delicate stems and pruners to cut woodier stalks. Don’t use scissors – they will crush the stem and prevent proper water intake. Cut stems as long as possible to give yourself more options when putting together the arrangement. You can always make them shorter later. Make cuts at a 45-degree angle to allow as much space on the stem to drink in the water. For woody stems, you can also split the bottom inch of the stem with a knife to increase their ability to take in more water.

Removing most of the leaves from the stems, particularly below the water level, encourages water absorption and keeps the vase from being too crowded. It also helps retard bacterial growth that shortens the life of the flowers and makes the water smelly and cloudy.

Now it’s time to decide how you want to arrange the flowers and in which container they’ll look best.

Any water-tight vessel will work. Small cream pitchers or mason jars work well with small, posy-style bouquets. Tall, columnar vases look best with a few long stems or flowers or branches. Galvanized buckets or ornamental watering cans pair nicely with a wild arrangement of more rustic flowers. A vase that flares out at the top will allow arching stems to droop gracefully from the bouquet. I sometimes tie raffia or other ribbon around the vase, and I’ve also added sliced lemons to line the inside of a glass vase.

Just as with planters, for most floral arrangements, you’ll want to include thrillers, spillers and fillers. The height of your flowers should equal about one and a half times the height of the container. Start by adding some stems of your filler – these could be foliage or more delicate or smaller-sized blooms. Then add your focal point. This could be a single bloom or 3 to 5 blooms, depending on the size of your vase. (Using odd numbers of blooms will be most visually appealing.) These might be the largest or most unique blooms in your arrangement, and should be taller than the filler. Then add your accents – smaller than your showstopper, in complementary colors and textures. You can choose to go with a monochromatic collection of blooms, or vivid, contrasting colors.

I sometimes find it’s easier for me to “build” my arrangement in my hand, starting with the focal point and turning the collection with each addition and lowering the height of the stems as I work my way around. There’s no right or wrong way; these are just tips to help you create a beautiful balanced arrangement. You can also make dramatic, exotic asymmetrical bouquets, tightly combined cube or fishbowl vases, or floral foam arrangements for shorter centerpieces.

The best way to ensure you get the longest life out of your arrangement is to add a ready-made preservative like Floral Life. These contain the right amounts of nutrition, cleanser and citric acid. Change the water daily and remove spent blooms. You can also cut the stems again to help lengthen bloom life.

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-05-08T08:57:28-05:00May 8th, 2020|Articles, bloom, blooms, cut flowers, cutting garden, daffodils, daisies, day lilies, esperanza, favorite flowers, iris, irises, Mexican bush sage, monarda, vase|0 Comments

January blooms brightening the garden

I’ve been amazed at the lack of a freeze this late in the season, but Facebook reminded me with a photo of brilliant variegated shell ginger that we only had our first freeze here at the house on January 4th last year.

While there aren’t as many blooms as in the summer months, it’s still delightful to find flowers in the garden now, especially these coneflowers.

These Pam’s pink Turks caps start blooming late but keep on going.

The cape honeysuckle are a bright burst on the increasingly grey days.

Another late summer/early fall bloomer, Mexican bush sage is prolific.

As are the Mexican mint marigolds.

In the pots by the front door, these begonias are refreshed after some cooler temps and rain.

And next to the begonias, these Mexican honeysuckles are about to bloom for the third time.

This Royal Queen, or Iochroma, is stunning. Bar none, my favorite in the garden these days. It’s a mid-fall bloomer, but oh-so-well-worth the wait.

In the granite and flagstone path out back, the sweet alyssum are perky as can be.

Even the neighboring pink skull cap is starting to bloom again.

I posted these on my FB profile last week – this abutilon is bursting with blooms.

Unruly, but showing deepening purple colors, indigo spires salvia is tough-as-nails.

The lion’s tails are still showing off — I’ve brought them in and arranged them in vases with other late bloomers. You can see those arrangements here and here. They include many of these blooms.

As I write this post, I realize that I’ve left a few of these bright blooms out of those arrangements, so I’m feeling inspired to make another arrangement today.

THIS is what I love about living in Austin, Texas.

Are you making bouquets from your garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-10-03T11:20:55-05:00January 5th, 2016|abutilon, alyssum, Blog, cape honeysuckle, Coneflower, garden art, indigo spires, Iochroma, lion's tail, Mexican bush sage, Mexican honeysuckle, Mexican Mint Marigold, Pam's pink Turk's cap, pink skullcap, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Bloom Day showcases late summer blooms in the garden…

Even though the thermometer hit 97 today, summer is beginning to wane here in Central Texas for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites us to share what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month, so here’s a stroll through my landscape.

Some of the heat-loving perennials are on their second set of blooms this summer. Plants like lantana, salvia, sage, are putting on a dog days show while the sun is still high in the sky.

I recently made a return trip to the Arbor Gate Nursery in Tomball to collect some of their wonderful garden art. I came home with two ceramic fish and two blue/green glass ribbons to add to the one I bought on my original visit. Now I need to plant just the right things to create an appropriate vignette for them to “swim” around in. But I had to put them in the garden somewhere until then, so here they are.

I also ordered some clever pieces online — these three faucet flowers are guaranteed to be ever-blooming varieties!

The seem to feel right at home with the blooming Turk’s cap.

These monstrous salvias that are dwarfing the fully mature bright edge yucca are Amistad salvias that I transplanted last fall after they were under performing in another spot with too much sun. Here they get morning sun and evening sun and they seem to be thrilled with the switch. Had I known they would get THAT happy, I’d have found them a spot further back in the bed!

One little surviving bat-faced cuphea. I planted them amongst many other things that are deer resistant, hoping to hide them. But alas, the deer are smarter than I am, and I almost never get to see an actual bloom before it becomes a snack.

This curve around the bend of the front bed is lined with society garlic – something the deer never eat!

These Salvia leucantha, or Mexican bush sage, love the hot, dry sun of late summer here in Central Texas.

The society garlic border confetti lantana and one of my bird baths.

A few new additions to the front walkway bed this year, the foxtail ferns and zinnias have done well. But the rock rose in the upper left corner has been rudely stripped of its pretty pink blooms by you-know-who.

The front bed, or the Hideous Bed, as we call it, is definitely not hideous. These plants thrive in hot, dry conditions so they can take it here. But last weekend’s rain did help them with an extra boost. Here you see thryallis, santolina, a variegated yucca and homestead verbena.

And a different angle that also includes damianita and a salvia greggii.

To the right of these photos is a swath of blackfoot daisies — they’re natives that grow in rocky outcroppings of the Hill Country.

Across the drive is another dry bed that enjoys a little shade. Here is new gold lantana, salvia greggii, a sago palm, and in the pot — a variegated false agave.

Stunning liatris is a riot of lavender color.

Large pots in the back by the pool have orange narrow-leaf zinnias and potato vine.

…And homestead verbena.

The Duranta erecta (lavender color) is full of blooms – below – and fruit — above. Though all parts of the plant are poisonous, so don’t be tempted to eat the fruit.