Make a Lilac bouquet and learn how to trim your Lilac Bush.
I received another nice bouquet from Jeff last week. It’s a Lilac Bouquet! It was on the table when I came home and I had to look twice to see if he had actually bought the flowers.
This time he mixed two Red Tulips in with it,and some other greens from various trees and plants around the garden, and some white flowers (I refer to them as “snow”). We had enjoyed the Tulips in one of our Container gardening pots for some time, so this was an excellent way to get just a little more time out of it.
I always hate to pick the flowers in the garden (which is why I told him he should do it). And, guess what? I received another bouquet this week! More Lilac’s!
According to Jeff, it’s good to prune them down a little as they are growing, so new flowers can come out. Then, when they all start to die down, remove the dead flower clusters, pruning them just above a node (where the leaf joins the stem).
You should also remove older branches that might be crowding in, or crossing over others. Cut these at the base of the shrub, just above the soil (yup, all the way down to the ground!). Also purne any weak looking branches, and/or broken spindly looking ones.
This way, you’ll have a beautiful Lilac tree next year, and can enjoy that first lilac aroma of the spring.
April 29th, 2007
I recently discovered something called the Dutch Garden. According to Wikipedia, “The Dutch garden is distinguished by its dense atmosphere and efficient use of space. On an international level, a garden with tulips is also easily labeled as a Dutch Garden.
The placement of flowers and shrubs in the Dutch garden is non-linear and informal, though still efficiently making use of space and light. Because the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries, gardens are generally small – and because houses are placed right next to each other, there is not very much light available. Because of these restrictions, a distinguished style of garden design emerged.”
It sounds like a Dutch Garden is not that different than Square Foot Gardening, except that in Dutch Gardening there are no little squares to put plants in. It’s all a little haphazard. However, there ARE some recommended plants for this garden, if you’re serious about putting a little Dutch Culture into your garden, here’s what to look for.
Tulips, Anemones, Calla Lily, Narcissus, Roses, Snowdrops, Crocuses.
I was surprised to see Roses on the list because my roses tend to grow tall and out of control sometimes. I guess you have to select the smaller varieties in order to maintain the small space gardening concept.
I think the largest Dutch Garden is the Keukenhof Garden in Lisse, Holland. I managed to find a very nice site that had some very colorful pictures of these gardens at: http://www.stsite.com/Keukenhof .
This is a beautiful slide presentation – I’ve never seen so many colors put together so nicely, and now I’m dying to get a hold of some of those blue Dutch Gardening flowers!
I’m not fooled though. It really doesn’t look like these gardens are planted in an informal way. They look very structured, although there are a lot of plants in one space. I guess you have to have some structure if you’re going to try to blend colors together.
These would also be perfect for container gardening!
All in all, I think it’s worth giving Dutch gardening a try. I’ll try to find some more information on them, so stay tuned.
April 10th, 2007