Happy Summer Solstice - Strawberries and Sweet Peas To Mark the Longest Day of the Year

Sweet peas coming into bloom gives me faith that summer is on its way (officially arriving around 7 p.m. this evening) ...and a few reluctant blossoms opened this week. Such delicious and satisfying fragrance - sweet peas are evocative of warm, grassy memories of summers past, and gardens coming into full and glorious bloom.

Which is finally, finally happening...for the first time this year I can go out into the garden and pick enough flowers to fill vases for every room. Below are my solstice celebration bouquets...what better way to acknowledge the longest day of the year, and the first day of summer that brings with it enough sunlight to  coax the strawberries to ripen and the sweet peas to bloom...

The alliums in a tall vase by themselves, as their round, starry heads need plenty of space; smaller bunches include poppies, nigella, catmint, arugula gone to flower, astrantia, honeysuckle and wallflowers for fragrance along with the sweet peas, cerinthe, and the odd Rudbeckia 'Green Wizard'

The double orange poppies hold up surprisingly well in bouquets, the pale little flowers are the arugula, and the intense blue is love-in-a-mist (Nigella) to be followed by striped pods nearly as showy as the flowers.

 

Comments

[Scott Weber]

Lovely...especially those Alliums...so impressive!

[Linda]

I really enjoy your work. And I need some double orange poppies - I haven't seen any like these. They're really great! Do you remember where you got them?

[valerie Easton]

Hi Linda,
I wish I remembered where I got those double orange poppies - maybe Renee's Seeds, although I dont' see anything on her website at the moment just like them. You could search for "double orange annual poppies" and see what you come up with...
Val