Flowers In Every Room
Many Co-op employees can vouch for my infinite love of flowers. When the first local bouquets starting arriving (late this year, due to our seemingly endless cold, wet spring), I would often parade them around, bringing black buckets of blooms into offices, gushing to anyone I shared the elevator with, or passed on the floor, exclaiming how lovely they were. “The first LOCAL flowers! Aren’t they so beautiful?!” If anyone got tired of my excitement over a cart full of flowers, it was well hidden.
For the bountiful summer months, a blue pitcher on my coffee table is constantly filled with marigolds so bright they seem to glow in the dark, a sake cup almost hidden by the long, twisted stems of sweet pea blooms lives on my kitchen windowsill, an ever-changing arrangement in a Mason jar hides the view of guests across my dining room table, a vase on top of my dresser fills my bedroom with the scent of lilies. Not even the bathroom is exempt, my toothbrush is hidden behind zinnias crowded into a stemless champagne glass. Every room in my house is filled with flowers.
What does someone like me do during the unpleasantly cold and dark days of winter to keep that joy and color alive? I make forever bouquets, force spring flowers to come early, plan and daydream about the next season.
Lavender, statice, hydrangeas, strawflowers (try cutting the stems at the base of the flower and piling the buds into an interesting shaped clear container), bachelors buttons, yarrow, globe thistle (any foraged from the side or the road or path do the trick for me), poppy and pincushion seed pods, bunny tails, pampas grass fronds, and wheat bundles all make wonderful dried arrangements. I am known to gather and bring indoors bunches of sticks covered with lichen, red twig dogwood branches, evergreen boughs, maple leaves to press, and pine cones to put in a bowl. When the nights get longer and the temperature drops, I move from spending evenings on my porch watering plants and watching the sunset to cozying up in front of the fire with a glass of wine and a copy of The Whole Seed Catalog (which is an absolute work of art in addition to being a seed catalog). And I still get to enjoy flowers in every room.
Cooler temperatures and more rain make autumn an excellent time for planting trees, shrubs, and perennials. Evergreen flowering plants such as camellias will bring you masses of blooms as early as February. Hellebore, some of which begin blooming in December are commonly and appropriately called Christmas Roses; their blooms are long lasting and quite precious peeking out from underneath drifts of snow. Red twig dogwoods are deciduous but add color to the garden when their vibrant branches are on display in the winter months. Other late winter/early spring bloomers are bulbs that should be planted in the fall. Crocus, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, daffodils, paperwhites, iris, ranunculus, and thirty varieties of tulips will have arrived at the Co-op in September.
To bring spring flowers early, force bulbs. Paperwhites and hyacinth can be forced in just water. Use a container with rocks or marbles underneath the bulb, making sure the base of the bulb is not submerged in water, which will cause it to rot. Hyacinths need a chilling period of 12 weeks to mimic winter temperatures. A refrigerator without fresh fruits and vegetables is best, so as to not expose the bulbs with ethylene gas, which can also cause the bulbs to rot. (Have you ever had the misfortune of smelling a rotten hyacinth bulb? I won’t try to explain except to say it is gag-worthy.) Please handle hyacinth bulbs with gloves! They contain calcium oxalate that causes a tremendously unpleasant itching and burning sensation.
Finally, after months of being busy with my outdoor plants, the annuals come to the end of their summer cycle, perennials rest until the next season, the bulbs are carefully tucked into the earth, I am able to focus my attention on my indoor plants. It brings me pleasure to still care for plants when the weather is hostile, and rain is pelting my cabin’s windows. Peace Lilies, Anthuriums, African Violets, Orchids, and Christmas Cactus can all be purchased blooming in the winter months. With proper care, they will give you weeks and sometimes months of blooms.
Honor the seasons and rest when the Earth does. Before we know it, the days will lengthen and it will be spring again. It will be time to buy seeds, and you will begin to put into fruition your dreams and ideas that have been sprouting all winter long.
By Magnolia Mullen