Cage Garden Plants

This year, I think I am ready to share about my only garden project. My own yard. It has seen many delays, but some successes. It evolves slowly when I can. So be forgiving of this work in progress! But we need to see green things this gloomy time of year 😁

Pittsburgh growers and designers, have you heard about our book celebrating your hard work? Cage Garden IG will now be Bloomsylvania, and feature content related to this beautiful project! This month is a time of transition for me. Due to health issues, I will no longer be doing the landscape work and garden design I love. But good news! photographer David S. Rubin and I are still looking for bouquets to photograph. We will also be sharing content related to our own garden. I am a big believer in Shirin Yoku, and will always be keeping a hand in the flowers. This arrangement is by me 😀.

This weekend’s bouquet. The rudbeckia are booming all over town. I always think of it as Pittsburgh’s official flower. A native plant in black & gold. It is not everyday your native flowers match your team.

Looking in on a planting I did in May. I took a risk with an unconventional color scheme. Last year was a candy carnival. This year is more dark and elegant. Tangerine zinnias are beginning to bloom and will complete the design for late summer.

A special bouquet for some special friends from California.

Flowers not fireworks! I was cutting these when less than a block away my neighbor was setting off some illegal ones. The grass was dry and crunchy under my feet. I have seen property go up in flames as a teenager when kids were setting some off on a dry summer night. And My deer and fawns, birds and bunnies are surely terrorized. Humans, play some rock n roll, eat good food, admire some bangin flowers.

I have been enjoying watching these client roses “3rd year leap”. They have not let us down. I spent yesterday evening cleaning up the fading blossoms. I will spend this one rooting for that elusive thunderstorm!!!

Roses are Oso Easy Mango Salsa and Coral Knockout. I am wondering how long the little blue pansies will keep on truckin’ in this heat??

This week is the final stretch of annual planting. So much fun I wish I could savor it, but the end of May/early June is always hyper speed. Maybe this year I will get around to sharing more of the results here. I am pretty excited to see these gardens fill out! Building a landscape is such a slow game, sometimes it takes a few years for shrubs and perennials to really shine. But annuals are like fireworks, an explosion of color only to fade away when frost comes in the fall.

Rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) is in it’s glory this week. The combination of hot magenta and cool fuzzy silver always turns heads. It is a short lived perennial, but easy enough to establish in a border and keep it rolling by taking little offsets each year. Best of all, it needs very little water, and in mild winters, the silver rosettes of leaves add interest to a bleak bed.

I won’t be selling bouquets this weekend. I harvested a bunch of ranunculus this week, but after storing them without a cooler, I felt a bit unsure about the vase life on many. A few dropped their petals and I had to admit I am still too inexperienced, since this was my first crop! So I took these bitter lemons and made lemonade—or end of spring goulash really! So here we have it, another arrangement for my Pittsburgh local flower book. All the spring leftovers and I am cheered up.