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You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore
By Flower | July 8, 2009
I live in Oklahoma, Tulsa in fact, with my wife and two kids. And there’s a reason my wife’s been humming the melody from Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond’s hit song, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore”. It’s because I don’t bring her flowers anymore. She put a stop to it. She said that with the price of flowers, especially roses, going up so drastically over the past several years there were just too many other things the money had to be used for, especially with two growing kids.
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss the flower delivery person at the door with a beautiful spray of flowers on her birthday, Valentine’s Day, or even Mother’s Day. It's not like me to brag, but I was a master at choosing just the right arrangement of flowers for her. And I'm not talking about just when we were dating. My gift of flowers continued long after we married. The bouquets were always colorful (and included at least two or three varieties of flowers that grew in her favorite color, yellow) and had such lovely fragrances that it was hard for her to give it all up.
Then one day I woke up. Even though we live in a climate where we have spring and summer for only about seven months out of the year, I figured I could still give her a “gift of flowers”, but it would just look a bit different then what she had become accustomed to. I could plant a beautiful garden with all of her favorites in it.
I wondered how I would get such a project underway. I had a feeling that unless I could do this affordably, my wife would not be singing a different tune when it came to the expense.
I had never grown anything in my life and certainly didn’t see myself with a green thumb. But I was determined to learn. So, I started researching on the internet for information about when to plant, what to plant, and how to keep those planted seeds growing, growing, growing!
Early on I ran across a site that did it all. They sold flower seeds, sure. But they did so much more. They had for sale every possible variety of flowers and tons of information posted about each one of them. I found a flower that I hadn’t heard of before, but knew immediately it would be a hit with my wife. It’s called the Shasta Daisy. Here are just a few of her finer points (no kidding, this was all available in one spot):
*She has a bright, yellow center.
*She blooms from early spring through September and is a perennial (that means it grows back on its own each year. You've got it; I'm definately picking up some new vocabulary words here.
*She makes a perfect cut flower, blooming for about two weeks in a bouquet.
*She is easy to maintain and is drought tolerant.
*You plant the seeds at only a depth of about 1/16 of an inch.
*Germination is about 2-4 weeks.
*She grows to a height of 1-3 feet.
I know it seems silly that I am talking about this plant as if it was a human being but this garden was becoming “my baby”.
And, let me just mention one more thing. Just when I thought I had enough information to get under way, and get my order in, I saw a link to purchase some gardening tools. Oops! I forgot that a hoe and rake would come in handy and who knew what else. I needed tools that would make my gardening easy and fun. I ran across a name I had not heard of before; Wolf Garden. At first I though it was the name of a rock band we had seen in concert in the late ’80s. Instead I found out these folks sold some pretty helpful garden implements. Basically, they’re easy to store and use because they have just one handle that’s interchangeable with all of their long garden tools (like the hoe, rake, broom, etc.) Cool! I thought I may as well give them a try, too.
So, I am anxious to get started planting. Of course, we had a bit of a late spring with our area flooding and all, but I will not be discouraged. By this time a year from now, I may once again be brining her flowers for those very special occassions.
Topics: Gardening | No Comments »