Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Apr 12, 2009, at 6:39 PM, Robert Walton wrote:

> I hope everyone is making sure to spend some time on flowers. One of
> the nice pleasures of homesteading. I'm planting flowering tobacco and
> some new marigolds this year, plus the normal stuff. I've collected
> some of the really small seeded sunflowers, they usually have lots of
> branches with blooms. The birds love those seeds and usually they
> manage to self seed. I've got a 100 foot or so bed along a fence that
> I'm putting in at least one row of sunflowers. It makes a really nice
> display when the birds start feeding on the seed.

Flowers are the dessert of the gardening meal.

Mother had a stroke about a month ago and now speaks mostly from  
vascular dementia. I take her for two or three rolls every day. The  
place where she is has extensive flower plantings, flowering shrubs,  
flowering trees. She is a lifelong gardener and the flowers give her  
great pleasure even in her present condition.

Plant flowers. Sunflowers, hollyhocks, iris, tulips, daffodils,  
hibiscus, lilacs, rose of sharon, forsythia, climbing roses, passion  
vine, anything that blooms pretty. Scarlet Runner Beans work, too. One  
of Chris's gardening goals is to have something in bloom every month  
of the year. Fortunately, witch hazel blooms in January at Heartwood.

Gene GeRue
www.RURALIZE.com