Growing flowers is a large part of who I am as a floral designer. I actually consider myself a farmer florist, someone who grows the flowers they design with. My garden in the Seattle area is a source of constant inspiration for me and a place where I find peace. I realized I tend to only take pictures of my finished floral designs, not of the process that leads up to it. A goal of mine this year is to capture the process, starting with planting in the Spring.
Starting in February, I start seeds inside my house. Some plants take as long as 12 weeks before they are ready to be placed in the garden outside. I am always amazed at how quickly a seed can turn into a plant in such a short time. These seeds and plant are scabiosa zinnias.
I source seeds from many places, including harvesting some from the previous years plants. This is my seed basket, where I keep them organized by their planting time.
This might not look like much, but to me it is full of possibilities! Much of my garden is full of perennials or plants that come back year after year. But these two beds are reserved for annuals or plants that only grown for one season. These include zinnias, snapdragons and cosmos. The lines you see are the soaker hoses, ready for the plants.
Sweet peas just starting to grow. These are one of my favorite flowers because they smell so amazing!
When the seedlings are ready to be planted outside, I move them into my tiny greenhouse to get them use to the outside temperature first. Each tray holds about 100 plants. You can see grasses, snapdragons and sweet peas on the shelves.
Bringing some plants out to set in the garden beds.
These heuchera or coral bells are a new crop for me this year. I am testing them out to use their leaves in my smaller designs.
You can see how the soaker hose waters the bed. It may look like only a bit of the bed is getting wet. But the water spreads out as it enters the soil, in a triangle pattern, feeding all of the plants roots.
Isn’t the pattern on these leaves amazing?
Setting out new scabiosa plants into a bed with mature plants.
Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’ that were seedlings last year. They produced their first flush of blooms early this year.
Dahlias, just starting to grow in the storage room. I have tried various methods of over wintering dahlias, many times to not great success. This year, I dug them up in the fall and divided them. I kept them in my cooler until the spring, when I put them in loose growing soil. It worked like a charm!
Crazy to think that one shoot will turn into a huge dahlia plant!
Once in the ground, my biggest challenge is to keep the slugs away. They do love to eat soft baby plants.
One of the first flowers I ever planted in my gardens was a lily. These are martagon lilies, a native variety from Europe. They get extremely tall and have downward facing blooms in a tiered pattern that reminds me of a chandelier. I moved and divided them this year, They seem to be taking to their new bed.
I will leave you with a picture of the plants I am most excited about: foxglove. I just weeded them yesterday and they are growing like crazy. Crossing my fingers that they bloom this season!
I want to thank my friend and neighbor Laura Nichols Photography for going on this journey with me to capture images of the garden all year. Check back in a few weeks for a post with new images!
