Wedding Flowers: Planning and Seeding

It's time to get into the really nitty gritty! I'm about to seriously brain dump on you, so please fasten your seat belt. 

The first step in planning your wedding flowers starts months before in advance. Most plants need to be started sometime before the last frost date if you want to get timely blooms. If you want them to flower before their normal time, you'll need a greenhouse or cold frame to start them, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. 

Let's backpedal to step 1:You need to choose what you want, how many you'll need, order seeds, and figure out exactly when you need to start seeds. 

This is a great project for those rainy winter months. You get to dream of the big day, the colors you want to work with, and just get everything planned out (because you're not going to have ANY time once things really get rolling - January is the time to do this). 

You will want to choose flowers that are specific to cut flowers. These tend to be taller, sturdier, and longer lasting than their garden counterparts. 

Some seed sources include, but are definitely not limited to:

Johnny's

Floret Farm

Territorial

Renee's

Botanical Interests 

*Note* Do not go to the nursery or the store and just buy whatever annuals they have in six-packs. These will not be satisfactory for arranging at all. 

When choosing what to grow make sure that you include the following:

- feature flowers (this would be your roses, peonies, dahlias, etc.)

- 2nd fiddle or background support (bachelor buttons, zinnias, calendula, carnations, cosmos)

- spires or spikes (lavender, stock, celosia, butterfly bush)  

- spillers (amaranth, dusty miller, etc.)

- fillers (baby's breath, corn cockle, saponaria, ammi majus)

- whispies (grasses and seed heads)

- greens (bupleurum, bells of ireland, basil, scented geranium, oregano, lemon balm, grape vines, you name it!)

Now, understand that these are generalizations. You most definitely can have something that usually plays a supporting role be the main feature of your arrangement if you want. Also keep in mind that some things can play multiple roles in your arrangement. It just depends on how you use it and what it looks like. 

It can be EXTREMELY tempting to buy ALL the seeds because this is a very exciting part of the process. Keep in mind, though, how much space you have. If you only have a small plot, maybe you only grow one kind of flower for your wedding. Because I live on 6 acres, I was able to go all out. Remember, the larger the scale, the more work you sign yourself up for. 

Knowing exactly how many you need is kind of a guessing game because you don't really know what will cooperate with you and what won't. My advice would be to grow more than you think you need. Just to give you an idea of how many flowers I used for 25 table centerpieces, 6 bridesmaid bouquets, 1 bridal bouquet, 9 boutonnieres, 4-6 arrangements for buffet and drink tables, and using flowers wherever else I felt like (this doesn't include what's still in the field):

- 4 buckets of 80-100 stems that I grew or cut from shrubs around the house

- 5 buckets of 80-100 stems from a local flower farm

- 2 buckets of daisies, lavender, and hydrangea from my grandma's garden

This gave me a lot of creative space and allowed me to use nice blooms without settling on sad-looking ones. 

Now we get to the brain-wracking part. Figuring out when to start seeding all this craziness. Look at the date you've selected (I'm going to use July 7 as an example since that is what I was working with). Make yourself an excel spreadsheet because things are going to get messy here and my excel skills are embarrassing, so please bear with me. Because I'm a plant nerd, I have scientific names in there as well. :P 

Disregard the sowing and germination columns (those are for my own personal curiosity); the important part here is the plant name, days to maturity, and when to plant. You need to know when you want the flowers, count back 1 week, then add on the days to maturity (DtM). The DtM lets you know approximately how long it takes for that particular plant to come into its own. To give yourself wiggle room, add the extra week. Because I have to have flowers on July 7, I planned on having blooms a week before, then started counting backwards to find when I needed to seed. The times that I have on here are the latest possible points that I would want to get those seeds going. Even with all this counting, weather is going to be a huge influence on the growth rate of your plants. My stock were ready 2 weeks before the wedding, but that was just in time for the bridal shower. The carnations were just in the early stages of bud break the day before the wedding, so we couldn't use any of them for their intended purpose. C'est la vie. It's how things go. That is exactly why I planted so many different kinds of flowers. 

Also, because the wedding was in early July, I had to start everything from seed in the greenhouse to make sure that things were blooming when I wanted to. You don't want to seed directly into the ground unless the soil temps are around 80 which doesn't happen until May-ish in the Willamette Valley. You get to have some wiggle room when you have access to a greenhouse. Granted, a greenhouse is not without its problems. I had to deal with extreme temperature swings that either roasted tender starts or brought on damping off, and we had fungus gnats that liked to raise their root chomping brood in the potting soil. 

So, I printed out my spreadsheets and whipped out the highlighter because I'm extremely visual. I color coded the different times that I needed to start things (red = February, orange = March, pink = April, etc) so that I could quickly glance and know what needed seeding and when. Filled up flats with potting soil, made labels, and started seeding. I just make tiny trenches with a stick and seed inside that line. Mist the potting media, protect with a plastic cover and some shade, and then wait. Note: some things germinate much faster than others. Be patient. 

Your seedlings have multiple stages; the ones we want to focus on are the first obvious to the naked eye: cotyledon and first true leaves. The cotyledons are the leaves that were developing inside the seed to be the food source until the plant gets enough energy to create the first true leaves. These basically look like tiny versions of the mature size. You want to prick out the seedlings at this stage; if they get bigger than that, the transplanting process will be too stressful on the plant. I simply use a chopstick to gently dig around the babies to get them loosened from their media, and then, using the chopstick, poke a hole in a filled 6-pack to gently put the baby root into.

And you just keep doing that until you've pricked out all the baby plants. This gives them room to grow and develop without stunting them, over crowding them, or making them compete for nutrients. Eventually, you look like you have an addiction.

As the plants grow, you need to check to make sure that they aren't getting root bound. This WILL stunt your plants and stress them causing them to be much shorter than desired. What you're looking for is how much root to potting soil there is, you don't want the segment to be solid roots, poor plant. Before letting them get to that stage, you need to up-pot them into 4" pots. Guess how I spent my afternoons and evenings in April. ;)

Give your babies a chance to acclimate to their roomier pots, and then start to transition them outside; this is called hardening off. You don't want to shock the babies with the harshness of the outdoors since they're used to the comfortable greenhouse space. Start them off in the shade, then I just leave them there until I put them in the ground. Not the most ideal, but they survive. 

Next up will be all about the flower field!

Until next time! 

SG

So You Want to Grow Your Own Wedding Flowers?

Let me just tell you - it's not the easiest of feats. 

I wish I could just say that it was as easy as throwing some seed out and plunking starts in the ground. There is a lot of planning and work involved in order to pull it off on any scale. 

My sister's wedding was yesterday which is now leaving me breathing space to think and process everything after frantic pace and increasing pressure that has been building since the engagement was announced.  I'm exhausted and sore, but I want to get these thoughts down while it's fresh in my mind (and I really don't want to do much of anything at the moment, so there's that too). 

I ACTUALLY DID IT!!! 

So without anymore ado: 

"Observations and considerations from surviving the wedding flowers process 

or

Things I wish I knew before jumping into this thing"

(I was going to make that the title of the post, but that seemed too long)

1. Have some gardening/farming know-how and understand garden planning

Even if you just have a little bit of an idea of what you're signing up for is a huge help. ;) I'll do some how-to posts of what we did to maximize our chances of success in other posts. 

As for the planning side of things - it's hard to plan to have flowers for a specific day. It's easy to plunk plants in the ground and harvest when they're ready. It's another matter entirely to have requirements for a certain day. To do this requires much planning and forethought and spreadsheets. 

My recommendation? Know when local flowers are typically ready. Then plan your special day during the peak flower periods. You have the spring flush, mid-summer bounties, and early fall bloomers. Early July is the wonderful lull in flower times. You've missed the flowers of May/June, but the July/August bloomers haven't quite come into their own. Just another thing to consider for your big day.

2. Understand the costs

Seeds, potting soil, pots, growing space, site prep, fertilizer, irrigation, netting, TIME. 

Your time is money. Remember that. 

3. Have a back-up plan

I had several because I was scared that nothing would work - put more plants in the ground than you think you need, plant more varieties and species than you want or think you'll need, and know a cut flower source (be it Costco, a local farm, florist, or grocery store) just in case you need more flowers. Because I was so busy with other parts of the wedding, I missed the deadline to order flowers from Costco (2 weeks before pick up). It ended up being perfectly fine because I was able to get bulk flowers from a farm located an hour from the venue on a short notice for a much better price than Costco. :fist pump: 

4. Take some flower arranging classes

The more you know, the more you know, right? Then take what you learn and keep practicing! Give your neighbors bouquets, maybe your goat will appreciate a flower crown, fresh flowers on the kitchen window sill is always a bonus. 

Honestly though, I was looking up Youtube tutorials on how to arrange boutonnieres the morning I was going to do all the arrangements because I had never done those before. :face palm:

5. Be extremely flexible with the final product

Know the general look and colors that you're going for, but be okay if they aren't EXACTLY like those gorgeous pictures you adore on Instagram or Pinterest. The flowers coming in from your flower patch will not, I repeat, not be perfect. There will be bugs, discoloring, blooms with their own opinion on which way is up, and more. If you're one with perfectionist tendencies, growing your own might not be right for your big day. 

Also, be flexible with the flowers and the length of flowers that come in. You don't know exactly when the plants are going to bloom. Those seed packets have a general range of when to expect flowers. There are a lot of factors that go into getting a plant to bloom: start day, day length, pest pressures, accumulated heat units, water accessibility, fertilizing schedule, etc, etc, etc... 

6. The flowers might be more fragile

By growing you're own, you get the opportunity to play with flowers that you might not ever see at a grocery store because some flowers just don't ship well or last that long in the vase after going through the process of getting hacked off a plant in South America, stripped of its leaves, put into a box, and shipped across continents. 

So. All that said, understand that you will need to be careful with the flowers coming in from your patch. Keep them in water, use floral preservatives, storing them in a refrigerator would be ideal after you've made the arrangements, etc. 

7. Know how much time you need to dedicate to this

This was a huge thing for me. I spent most my April afternoons up-potting seedlings into 4" pots, and then in May, my brother and I spent most afternoons prepping the site and transplanting all those babies. Once that was done, we both had a huge sigh of relief. Come the preparations for the big day, you will need to be slowly harvesting to not damage the blooms, give them time to condition, etc. I spent the ENTIRE day before the wedding just arranging flowers. All. Day. Long.

8. Never stop learning

There are so many resources out there for slow flowers, local flowers, growing cut flowers, and arranging your own masterpieces! Hit up Instagram to find designers and growers, pour over books, scour websites for hints, tips, tricks, tutorials, and how they do things! Why try to reinvent the wheel when there is so much information at your fingertips? Here's a few of my favorites

https://www.floretflowers.com/

Floret Farm's Cut Flower Book

The Cut Flower Patch by Louise Curley

Debra Prinzing books  

And this is just the tip of the ice burg.  

And that's it for now! Like I said, I'll be posting more of the nitty-gritty how-to's to give you a better understanding of what you're considering jumping into. 

Apparently this smirk is exactly like my great-grandma's

Yes, I did catch the bride's bouquet. 

I had people ask me if I had planned that with my sister; no, I didn't. I just know how she throws. :P

I also had someone ask me if I had homing flowers. 

Nope. If I knew how to do that, I would be making big bucks selling these flowers to all the brides wanting to set up their single friends.

Until next time!

SG

Greenhouse: Transplanting

Last time I posted, I left you with all the panel problems we were trying to deal with. Well, I'm glad to report that we're (slowly) getting those kinks worked out. I'm hoping that we'll have them all worked out by the time the October storms start to settle in. :P 

So when I'm not taping down greenhouse panels when it's windy, what have I been up to? Well, for a few weeks it was non-stop transplanting. 

I kid you not. I brought home 75% of the starts from work, and they all needed to be up-potted. They had outgrown their 6-packs and it was time for the 4" pots. Why did they have to all need it all at the same time though? 

My babies came home!

So I would transplant all the babies at work (sometimes for most of the day) and then come home and transplant some more. I'm very grateful that the wi-fi reaches the garden because I could just turn on Pandora on my phone, plug it into the outdoor radio, and have my tunes while working and not be subjected to whatever was on the airwaves. I had enough of that while I was commuting to school.  

Completely in my element

And just like that, the greenhouse was full. 

And this isn't even all the flower I have. o.O

Since then, I've moved most of the flowers outside to harden off so that we can get them in the ground as soon as it's ready so now there is more space inside. Just in time to start thinking about what I want to seed for the fall and winter garden! :P 

Until next time!

SG

Greenhouse Adventures: Troubles

The greenhouse saga continues! 

Ever since my brother and I put the roof panels into the greenhouse, there have been several that don't want to cooperate. 

We first thought that everything needed to be cinched down. Nope. 

Maybe a few caulking dots? Nope.

Caulking along the entire edge? Nope.

Just keep pushing them into place and pray that they stay put? Nope.

No matter what we did, those panels would always keep sliding down. 

This has officially become a battle of wills. Who will win? 

I came home from work, and my brother told me to go outside before I took my boots off. Uh-oh... 

Those darn panels were so opinionated that a couple finally decided to wiggle out and find a new home on that blustery day. Thankfully, they didn't get far, and we were able to get them before they really went anywhere or got damaged. Thought you could run away, huh?  

Do you see a problem? Something missing perhaps? 

Thankfully, I didn't have any of the newly germinated plants in there yet. 

So I turned to the all-knowing Google to see if it had any advice to dispense. 

And it did. 

I found a guy who grew in greenhouses, and he had an entire clip on what he used to keep his panels in place. 

SCORE!

His recommendation? This stuff. 

It can be applied wet, it sticks even when it gets wet, and (according to the You Tuber) lasted a long time. But it costs $10/roll. Valuable stuff this is. 

So to the store we went. 

Again. 

We put the panels back into place, and secured the rebellious ones.

Fast forward a few days, and it was a dark and stormy night. Thankfully, my brother was outside the moment the front came through and immediately thought to check the greenhouse. One wall panel had completely come out and another one was seriously thinking about it. So there we were, putting panels in again and taping more all by flashlight this time around. It's a really good thing we had bought two rolls of tape. 

Now no one is going ANYWHERE. 

...At least, I hope... 

Until next time! 

SG

Greenhouse Adventures: Tables

The next step in this larger-than-anticipated project was tables because just putting flats of plants on the ground isn't exactly a good use of space and we'd be crawling over them trying to get everything else finished. :P 

If I was in a pinch, I could have done that (okay, I was in a pinch, but I stubbornly ignored it).

I measured the interior dimensions of the space, drew up some designs, and handed them to my dad. He knows lumber math better than I do. Why do they say 2x4 when it's really smaller? This baffles my sewing brain. 

And then it was table making time. 

These things are built like tanks, and they're HEAVY. It's surprising how much weight wood can put on if it gets left in the rain. 

Isn't it purty!

They fit perfectly! Dad's lumber math was spot on. ;) 

Because the tables were so heavy, it was quite the back-breaker to get them into place. We had to take out the first table to get the back table in, remove a side wall panel, and we still had to use our backs as the lever. It was painful to go to work the next day... 

But they're in, and I think that they'll last longer than the greenhouse. :P 

And I don't know how many trips to the store the tables were. At least 2? 

Until next time! 

SG

Fire and Steel and Explosive Gases, Oh My!

This last term at school was a little different - my last required class was online (and boringly easy), and the other two classes had nothing to do with horticulture and were pretty much as opposite to each other as they could be: dancing and welding. 

You already know how much I love dancing, so I don't need to go into detail about that (except to say that swing dancing is my favorite thing ever). But welding... That world was (and still is) completely foreign and unlike anything I had ever done before. 

I picked up the textbook which reads more like a manual than anything else. If you want a dull horror story, you can read this. It will tell you everything that can go wrong while welding and say it in such a matter of fact way that you have to do a double-take to make sure that you read it right.

Between sparks, slag, extreme heat (to the tune of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit), exploding concrete, scorching hot metal, equipment that costs more than my car is worth, gas that is highly combustible and at high pressures... it was all rather intense to say the least. My brain wasn't sure how to process all of that. 

This handy chart would have been useful for the first day of class. I had no idea what the instructor was talking about when he was throwing out all these acronyms in the lecture. 

Exploding concrete? Oy. 

I had to psych myself up for each class. I had already been up early for work, and then to drive across town to school for a late evening class was exhausting. Thankfully, my dad was taking the class with me. We'd stop for Chipotle on the way to class, eat dinner, then start welding. 

The welding booths were hot (I couldn't imagine doing this class during warmer weather), sparks were flying everywhere, you can only see through the tiny window in your helmet, picking up welding sticks with bulky gloves took some serious patience with yourself. 

At the beginning of the term, we were all handed a check-off list of the different welds that we were to work on during class. Once I got over my initial terror of holding the welding torch, things went rather smoothly, and, for me, quickly. I practically flew through the list while others were still trying to bead a straight line. My dad thinks that it's because of all my sewing that I have a steady hand. I have no idea why. 

I just want to add this before going any further: welders have quite the fashion sense. :P Heavy, rough leather jackets, hats in the strangest fabric prints, stiff canvas pants, leather boots, and you can't forget the safety glasses and welding mask. Actually, you're not even allowed in the machine shop without safety glasses on - I'm sure it's an insurance thing, but seriously, there's the possibility for heavy flying things hitting you in the head. At least protect your eyes, kid. 

We started with stick welding, then moved to wire feed, and the graduated to bigger wire feed. That's about as far as most the class got through their lists. Since I finished early, I got to play with oxyfuel welding (the chunkier cousin of TIG welding), oxyfuel torch, and a plasma torch (which was super cool because you can cut a lot of metal really fast and there's sparks everywhere, and I was covered in steel flecks). 

We had the option to do a project in class if we so desired. I had no idea what to make. So to pinterest I went. I narrowed it down to two possibilities: a necklace hanging tree or cattails for the kidney bean of a pond in my herb garden. I headed to the repurposing store to see what I could find. I honestly had no idea what I was looking for, but the owner was super helpful, and I found some steel leaves that someone had hammered out. With that, I knew that I would be doing the tree. I then wandered through the aisles of Home Depot (now I know how my dad and brother feel in the craft store) until I found metal rods. 

Because the metal rods were thin enough, I was able to cut and lay everything out at home with the tools that we have. This is what I came up with

And I used all the pieces within 45 minutes of starting. We had from 6:30-9:50 to weld. My tree looked rather poorly pruned, so the next week, I brought in more branches and leaves.

The finished result:

The log round is from a maple tree that fell on the fence during one of the storms this winter. How nice of the tree to get to a level that we can reach it. :P 

Because I finished the tree much faster than anticipated, I also figure out how to do the cattails since the instructor showed me how to use the cutting torch. My cutting lines are rather jagged, but I didn't feel inclined to smooth them out - it's just going out in the garden... 

They look like I stuck swords in the ground.Now to just figure out how to get in in a stone... Hmm... 

The class certainly felt over my head at the beginning, now I feel like I could pick up a welder and melt metal whenever I need to. I guess the class did what it was supposed to. ;) Do I feel inclined to pursue more classes in this field? Not really. It's not a world that I'm necessarily drawn to, but it is good to know how to wield a welder. 

Until next time!

SG

Catching up from Spring Term

Where to begin? It certainly has felt like another looong term, but I survived. ;) Here's some shots to get you up to speed. This is a text and picture heavy post, so here we go. 

Special dance for a guest caller that came to the area

Practicum harvest

Turkey poult

This picture has a bit of a story with it... It all started with my car not starting when I was running late to class. Phooey. Thankfully, I had another car option to get to class. I didn't have time to deal with the problem until the next day after classes.  

It took all afternoon, but I finally managed to orchestrate a tow truck that was 'approved' by the insurance company to get my car to the mechanic. They took one look at it, and said that the only problem was some corrosion on the battery terminal. Seriously?! I looked at that and didn't think that it was that bad. Apparently so. $40, a bunch of phone calls, and an afternoon later, my car was doing just fine. Thankfully, everything worked out well, but it was still a hassle. My classmate the next day asked what was wrong with my car, and after explaining my tale of woe, she said 'Well, was the mechanic cute at least?' 'Uh... yeah...' '!!! When's the next time you get to see him?' "I don't know; next oil change maybe?' The next week, apparently word got around about the 'cute mechanic' and some others were asking if I had asked him out yet. 'Nope.' 'Well, when's your next oil change?' 'A long while.' And this is after I was already convinced that my car was playing match maker because she kept coming up with all these random little things that needed to be checked. :face palm:  

Anyway! Continuing on! My fun class for the term was kitchen herbs. I honestly didn't fully know what to expect from the class, but I knew I wanted to take it. I walk into class to find out that it was a cooking class! Booyah! We've been learning how to grow all this fantastic food, now it's time to learn how to use it! From mocktail sangria, branch dressing, melon mint salad, green bean radish and basil salad, warm maple rosemary sundaes, and much more. Can we have more classes where we eat our way through to earn credits? I guess that would involve going to cooking school. Never mind.

Even with work and classes, my sister, a friend, and I still managed to squeeze in a fun concert one evening. Djangophiles were fantastic, and they have my sister convinced that I need to learn to play the upright bass. To humor her, I looked up the prices for a bass... Yeah, not going to be doing that anytime soon. 

 

I brought in the peonies before it started raining. Love the giant, luscious blooms!

I can't resist the words: free plants

Moving meat chickens out to pasture

Needless to say, these shoes look like something you would find in an archaeological dig after I was through with them.

My red legion poppies started blooming on Memorial Day weekend. Rather fitting, I thought. 

After her yearly adventure where we don't see her for a couple of weeks, she showed up at the back door, wanted food and water, and then curled up in the nearby basket and slept. You crazy kitty. 

A local farm had early ripening blueberries. Nomnomnom! 

That's all for now! I'll post some pictures from work later.

Until next time! 

SG

Another Bee Swarm

Two weeks ago, I had my first experience with catching a swarm. 

So we had Hive 1 (the original) and Hive 2 (the caught swarm). We were excited that our colony collection had doubled. Yay! 

Then, 2 weeks later (to the day) Hive 1 swarmed (seriously?!). Apparently the new, virgin queen is rebellious because she promptly left home after she hatched with all her besties to go on a road trip. 

Anna and I had just finished getting the shade cloth on the hoop house to protect the tender greens from the blazing sun that was going to make an appearance over the weekend, and I was getting things watered in and Anna got a text from the kitchen asking for more mustard greens stat. Friday afternoons in a kitchen with big events scheduled for the weekend needs a lot of produce, and they needed more than we had brought in earlier that morning. She headed off to fetch them their produce when she popped her head back in the greenhouse asking me for my opinion on the bees.  

We walked up to Hive 1, and sure enough they were pouring out of every nook and cranny of the hive and circling around. Deja vu anyone? Granted, the swarm was significantly smaller this time because the previous swarm had taken over half of Hive 1 with them.  

This time, Anna watched the bees to see where they went while I quickly harvested mustard greens and ran them into the kitchen. On my way back, it must have been apparent that I was in a hurry because it felt like everyone wanted to talk (since when did anyone want to talk to me?) Once back in the garden, Anna had already pulled together the equipment, suited up, and had the swarm in the blue bin. All my rushing for naught. 

This time, the sillies alighted on a branch just out of reach. Thankfully they weren't 40 feet up in the Doug firs, just a ladder's height in a wild fruit tree. ;) 

Welcome to your new home! :dump:

With how flighty this new queen is, we're going to commit regicide (gasp!) and bring in a new queen once one is available. Bee colony politics are certainly something else. 

Now we have Hive 1, Hive 2, and Hive 3. 

Little did I realize how much I'd be working with bees when I got the job. :P 

Until next time! 

And hopefully it won't be about catching :another: swarm. 

Sarah G