“The earth laughs in flowers.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A little over two months ago I started collecting flowers from my garden. If you are from Phoenix and live here during our summer months, then you know that flowers are pretty rare when it gets hot here. They just don’t last long.

There are plenty of fresh flowers at the stores. But trying to stick to a budget, being frugal, well…lets just say flowers are not at the top of most important things to buy for the week.

 

Have you noticed how much food has gone up? So I push my shopping cart full of food past those beautiful flowers and go home to whatever flowers my garden has given me for that day.

Then an idea came to me early one morning when I was out cleaning up the pool, I looked around and noticed all the tiny flowers everywhere in my garden.

Well…I thought to myself. Look at this floral shop full of bouquets. I can have fresh flowers on my kitchen table every morning if I like. And a good meal at the end of the day to feed my family too.

This was my first bouquet, day one of pretty flowers. One purple petunia and a whole lot of African daisies. Just bringing a little sunshine inside.

I added some fern clippings, tiny white flowers, a purple petunia and several daisies that were in bloom that morning.

Every morning along with my regular routine, I started picking flowers from my garden.

I had so much fun arranging the different bouquets every day.

Sometimes I come across a flower just about ready to bloom, knowing that soon I would have another pretty flower to add to one of my bouquets.

Mini white roses, so tiny and just adorable (remember I am a big fan of the little things) and jasmine with it’s wonderful fragrance.

I couldn’t believe all this time I had such a variety of flowers to choose from. This tiny white rose was one of my favorites.

And then up pops a marigold.

One morning this unusual colored Petunia popped up in one of my hanging pots. A seed must have gotten in with my elephant food plant. A very happy surprise, that’s what that was.

My bouquets were a mix match bit of assorted flowers, but they worked for me and made me happy, so in they went to our kitchen table for the day.

Pretty easy to make your own arrangements. Just head outside, pick some greens along with a pretty flower or two and add to a jar of water. There you go…a little bit of happiness for your kitchen table.

Everyone started noticing these bouquets of mine and commented on how nice they were.

Looking forward to what each day brought, everyone enjoyed the varieties our garden was giving us. Each bouquet was a little different and had it’s own personality.

Even Alley Cat couldn’t stay away from them.

Trying to act like she wasn’t interested, as soon as I turned away I would catch her smelling them.

“You are not suppose to be on the table” I tell her. She wasn’t moving, she figured she had the best spot in the house. We clean and disinfect our tables before we prepare foods, so she was okay.

I tried to record my adventures in bouquet making by taking photos, but I missed a few days. These are just some of my favorites on the days I remembered to take a photo.

I was able to keep up with fresh flowers every 2-5 days for two whole months. That’s a lot of bouquets everyone.

I think my favorites were any bouquet with Jasmine. The little white flowers aren’t very photogenic but next to other flowers they make everything pop with colors. Plus the smell of Jasmine is heavenly. They bloom at night and early in the morning as soon as I stepped out that back door I would smell them.

Then there were the very colorful bouquets.

Actually, when it comes to flowers, it’s pretty hard picking a favorite.

Out exploring all the corners of my garden, hunting for flowers was starting to become addictive.

So many choices. If you looked at my garden from a larger view you would not have thought there were flowers for bouquets, but there were for a little simple one now and then.

Use what ever you have out there to make your bouquet. Bet you will be surprised yourself with what you come up with too.

The last week of flowers was the week of my birthday. I did not get anymore flowers after July 19th. And these are it, my last bouquets for the summer.

Hope you all have beautiful flowers everyday on your kitchen tables as well. If you don’t have a garden, take a walk in a park or out in nature, there are thousands of bouquets just waiting for you to share your home with them.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”

James 1:17

I am offline for the whole month of August. Thank you for stopping by for a visit. Thank you for your likes and comments as well. Hope you all are having a wonderful summer, from all of us at Our Little Red House.