Here are my list of excuses hahaha...

I have a lot more coming up in another wave (I planted 50 tulip bulbs in that general area) and I work from home and I'm inside the house about 10 hours a day, so I like to take pictures of what blooms and then cut them to enjoy in the house (read: 10 minutes later ). The pictures I take and often enlarge/frame outlast the blooms and the short bloom time helps me justify cutting the flowers and enjoying them where I can see them haha!

The critters don't get the stuff inside the fence for some reason -- the squirrels just dig around looking for acorns...

I happen to have <ahem @Legalily> been made aware of a Facebook bulb sale and let's just say I got in over my head. The plan is to plant a cutting garden because I just can't get enough of having [bulbs to plant] flowers in the house -- in every common area, if it were up to me -- so I'm trying to make my [back hurt] dreams come true

I do what I can to enable. I was just paying it forward

No excuses needed. Nothing wrong with a cut flower garden at all.

LorettaNJ said:Really! That will be a beautiful bouquet. I should do that more. Do you usually grow them as cut flowers or are you trying to beat the critters to the punch?
More snow tonight. Everything is buried again except the witch hazel.

Loretta, I thought I'd show you how I cheat a few into the house

And still plenty more in the garden. I should do that.

I love to bring flowers in - especially when the Daffodils, Peonies and Iris are in bloom.

Speaking of cut flowers <and the 25+ dahlia tubers that will be arriving soon > I just learned that when cutting dahlias:

"After you've harvested dahlia flowers, make a fresh horizontal cut at the bottom of the stem and place the cut ends in about 2-3 inches of very hot (not quite boiling) water. Let the stems stay in the water for at least one hour. This hot-water treatment conditions the stems so the blooms will last four to six days."

--Dahlia Flowers: How to Grow, Cut, and Arrange Them: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/...

Jackie, glad you posted this about Dahlias. This is the first year I have ever tried to grow them. I have three planted and two have popped up. Fingers crossed they produce for me and good luck with yours.

My rule of thumb is that once it's in the ground it isn't coming back up so I don't grow dahlias but I do think they're gorgeous.

I like that rule, Ginny! But I also like Dahlias and they just do much better in the ground than in pots here, so I guess I'll have no choice but to keep potting them up before planting them out every spring and lifting them again in the fall.

Ginny you don't have to dig them up. Treat them like annuals. They are easier for me to store with soil on them. When I wash everything off my survival rate goes down. My basement may be too warm even next
to an external wall. Got my first daffodil bloom yesterday next to the south wall.



Discovered Microsoft "Onedrive" app to transfer pics from my phone when on my Wi-Fi to windows 10 pc without a cable. Whoo Hoooo. Works great. It can also be used on the phone network.

I have a lot of blooms in my garden right now - borage, verbena, sweet alyssum, calendula, and my aloe vera. It's pretty in my front yard!

Loving the Daffodils Mike
Pictures Liz

I forgot to mention that the bignonia is also blooming. I'll try to remember to take the camera out tomorrow.

Here's what's blooming in my garden:

Queen of Night Single Late Tulip FFE


Orange Brilliant FFE

Very nice! Everyday, the animals are demolishing another plant here, even tulips they never touched before. Some aren't even getting eaten, just torn apart. They took down all the Pickwick and Flower Record crocuses in the front yard. Looks like they ate all the new Tulipa linifolia (100) and working on the old patch, Honky Tonk and Lilac Wonder are both getting tattered.





So far they have been better about the crocuses in other parts of the yard.

Blue Pearl



Flower Record



King of the Stripes

So sorry for the damage. Do you know what critters they are?

Love the crocus!

Lilli, probably some rabbit nibbles but mostly squirrels. I can't complain. Most years they have left them alone. Of course they always pick out the favorite. Here is a Pickwick before the take down.



This one had its petals eaten since the picture but plants are good. This was crocus minimus but it wasn't as showy as the pictures.



A blurry hepatica nobilis var. japonica. Cute but I thought I would love it more. Maybe once it gets established.



Scilla mischtschenkoana is one I didn't love at first but like it more now. It is even sowing around the yard a little, some a little way off so I guess the ants like the seed? Or maybe it is crossing with the common blue squill?