I just saw my first Narcissus blooming ! So I put together a seasonal bouquet yesterday in my home office for a client meeting, in hopes that some flowers might distract from the piles of books, files, and clutter all over every surface.
I dashed out to cut a few of these first daffodils, which always seem to arrive before Halloween. These are ‘Ziva’ paperwhite bulbs, always the first to bloom, needing only to know that it is October to start their growing cycle, and that the California rainy season is about to begin.
They were blooming down near the asparagus patch, which has now turned an autumn butter yellow with red berries. Hmmm . . . a bouquet ?
Well it doesn’t take much extra time to cut a bit of these yellow leaves, I said to myself as I considered the time before my client was to arrive. And the yellow foliage color will pick up the color of the daffodil anthers.
This does have the makings of a bouquet, especially if any of the red Camellias are blooming to go with those red asparagus berries.
Camellia sassanqua are reliable winter flowering shrubs here and my pale pink “Apple Blossom” hedge has been blooming for a couple weeks now, but the red “Yuletide”? Well, it took no real effort to look. I walked back up the driveway toward the office. Not only were the first blossoms open, I had forgotten they have bright yellow stamens too ! Instant floral designer.
Gardeners can pull off an instant bouquet out of the garden almost anytime, be it spring bulbs, summer flowers, autumn foliage, winter evergreens, recognizing the interests of every season, grasses, roses, wildflowers, branches, etc., etc. There is almost always some bit of nature we can bring into our homes on any given day that reflects the season and connects us to the earth.
I bet many of you do it instinctively. It just amazes me though, here in California, in October, that I can’t decide what season to call it. Here is bouquet I gathered in my Sonoma garden about 15 years ago – in December. What is most unusual ?