A Bouquet a Day Is the Beautiful Way

Flowers are a cherished garden crop. Gardeners snip blooms to brighten their homes and give gifts that warm hearts.

Photo shows a bouquet of bright, colorful flowers on a picnic table

For garden flowers to look like this, gardeners put in planning, work, and TLC.

Photo shows two gardeners on the ground, planting and weeding

Members of the garden’s Flower Power team select, start, plant, tend, and orient others to care for the flowers. The garden Flower Lady (left) started hundreds of seeds at home. When to start them is guesswork, as each season’s unfolding weather determines when seedlings can go into the ground. Sometimes it’s so late that seedlings must be transplanted into larger containers while awaiting go time.

Photo shows red poppies growing in front of immature flower seedlings and unplanted rows of earth

Poppies (in the foreground) showed up long before the zinnias and cypress vine seedlings in the background showed a single bloom.

Photo shows a view through a garden fence into red and purple flowers. The background shows a man in the garden and a long trellis of pole beans. In the foreground, a metal sculpture of a mayfly rests atop a long cedar log used as a beam at the top of the garden fence.

Before long, a mere three flower rows explode into colorful glory.

Photo shows a woman in the garden holding a bouquet in one hand and a round yellow cucumber in the other

Photo shows a man outside the garden holding a bouquet

Then it’s bouquet time!

Photo shows a person kneeling among the flowers and handing flowers to someone standing before him in a romantic-looking image

Flowers are for giving, as here, bestowed from one spouse to another.

Flowers are for taking home and beautifying where gardeners live. These gorgeous flower arrangements and photos are by gardener Carol Selemon (used with permission).

Photo shows two women standing in a commercial kitchen. One holds a bouquet in front of her face; the other smiles. Bags of food are on a table to the right.

Flowers are for giving, along with food, to a free community kitchen meal.

Photo shows a woman at a picnic table holding a sunflower; bouquets sit on the table in front of her. The garden and compost system are visible in the background.

Days among the flowers are the most beautiful of all.

That includes blooms from the garden’s roadside perennial bed and those growing wild in the “back forty,”

Photo shows hands tying a bunch of flowers together in the foreground and a basket of flowers in the background, on a picnic table

Until, finally, frosty nights approach. All the remaining flowers are harvested. Gardeners take them home to cherish and give as gifts; others go to the food pantry.