Gather flowers before the frost
Last night was the first frost here in West Granby. So for me it was time for my annual tradition, going out and cutting armfuls of flowers for season-end bouquets. I especially associate this tradition with picking marigolds as they are not the easiest to arrange and they look better in the garden, that is, until you know they won’t be there anymore tomorrow. So I usually don’t pick them til frost threatens. So late yesterday afternoon I gathered bunches of the marigolds that my sister-in-law, Chris, had given me to grow and sat down at the table to arrange them in multiple vases. For me it’s a lot of fun as I put into practice the family knack for flower arranging that came down to me from my mother, Dorothy Jones, and my grandmother, Jessie Isaman. Here are this year’s results. All the bouquets this year are all-sided bouquets. The first bouquet, the largest, decorates the dining room table. It happily matches my wife’s fall colors. The second sits at her computer desk to cheer her spot. The third is on my chair side table along side my Bible, devotional book and notepad. There are full size marigolds and two colors of smaller ones along with a very hardy daisy type plant that blooms very late. Greenery is form a licorice plant and some shrubbery that grows out front that I have to trim anyway.
