That sounds great! I have a lot of stuff blooming now but not enough of it to bring to market. Next year, the plants will be more established.

Of the current items in flower next year in May I will have columbines, painted daisy, and verbascum. I also have regular daisies in bloom but they look terrible.

I am putting in doronicum and armeria this year and with any luck next year they will also be in bloom around this time.

The next ones I have coming are larkspur, foxglove, peonies and canterbury bells.

Those sound great, Martha. Did they sell well for you? Our market doesn't start for another two weeks and, since I don't have too many perennials, I struggle to come up with much even then. Usually I have sweet Williams to help the cause, but I couldn't get them in last summer. Catmint is blooming nicely here.

I usually grow a bunch of herb plants to sell at the early markets to help get a few bucks rolling in. My first bouquets usually have lots of daisies and heliopsis, two perennials that I do have. They both are awesome producers for me and great cuts as well.

ThinMan

I've never tried heliopsis. Can you tell me more about it? I'm going to search this forum for more anecdotal info. Is it manageable in the perennial border or does it need to be separate? Blooms all season? How tall do yours grow? I don't do a lot of yellow, but could combine with yellow lupine and all my purples and whites. My flower sales are mediocre this time of year, but I like to get my bouquets out early to remind people they are around.

Heliopsis has nice strong stems, grows 2 - 3 ft tall for me, and I cut it from late June through early August. Pretty good for a perennial, I think. The plants are well-behaved, getting a bit bigger each year, but not spreading, so they would be fine anywhere. I started mine from seed a few years ago. They don't seem to need any special care.

I really like them.

TM

Such a difference, you guys are talking Spring flowers and they've been and gone for me, I'm now using Summer one's.

Spring Flowers this year were Anemones, Ranunculus, Dutch Iris, Larkspur, Cornflowers, Statice, Bells of Ireland, Orlaya, Queen Anne's Lace, Delphiniums, Agrostemma, Bupuleurum, Snapdragons, Salvia, Dianthus, Liliums, Godetia.
Cheers Kim - BFFF

Hi Kim, I've been seeing some of your great flowers on your Facebook page. They are super. Up here we haven't even had our first market yet, and I wouldn't have much to sell if we did. My flower starts have been in the ground for only two weeks and they are just now getting used to their new digs. I did make a small bouquet for the table yesterday from agrostemma, baptisia, cornflowers, and veronica, so I do have a few things.

It's nice to see you here.

ThinMan

Our market doesn't start this early, so I don't usually have much for spring, but yesterday I cut a bouquet for inside using lupines, perennial foxglves, nigella, larkspur, knautia, sweet william, campanula, and lots of feverfew (I've got that coming out of my ears! I love it so much - great filler! - I just wish it would bloom a month later!)

Dee

Foxglove, Canterbury Bells, peonies, antique roses, yarrow, hydrangea, lilies and Dahlias! We do use many herbs for filler. And, fern and hosta leaves. Good to see everyone here!

Trish, it's so good to see you here. This place isn't the same without you.

Dee, good to see you too. It sounds like we are in the same boat as far as markets go. With no one to sell them to, I don't even try to do flowers for spring bouquets.

TM

Thanks, TM! Funny, I wanted to cut a bouquet for a co-worker's birthday, and I have so little stuff at the moment (the stuff I mentioned above is on its way out) that I am actually eyeing some garlic scapes from the vegetable garden! They're quite attention-getting. I just have to go take a whiff of them to see if they smell - wouldn't want my co-worker to stick her nose in the bouquet and take a deep breath and get a noseful of garlic! Although, if she were like me, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing!

Sometimes I wish our market would start earlier, but considering how rushed and behind I always am in the garden, it's probably a good thing that I don't have that added pressure on me to have flowers earlier!

Dee

I was haunting the forums, looking for pictures of flowers for ideas for wintersowing and saw this string and had to put in my fav! I'm verging on zone 4 at my altitude, listed as zone 5 and last year was the first spring I had Penstemon strictus (Rocky Mountain Blue was the variety) bloom in my garden. It bloomed pretty much the entire time I had peonies. I have around 90 varieties that bloom from early to late and this penstemon bloomed the entire time. It's a larger blooming penstemon but only gets to around 3' high max, spread probably around 18-24". It's still a slightly spiky bloom and the blue looked great with every peony I put it with, made wonderful arrangements. It is one of the easiest seeds to wintersow, also. If started this winter I wouldn't be surprised if it had a small amount of blooms late spring this next season and a large spread the 2nd year.

LizinElizabeth:

Is that penstemon similar in color to the "blue" nepeta?
If it were closer to blue than violet, I would do it, otherwise, I have a lot of nepeta already. You have 90 varieties of peonies??? Wow! that's a lot of work.