Vegetable growers are just now beginning to experience such delicacies as home grown peaches and tomatoes. There is nothing as sinfully delicious as ripe fresh fruits such as those. I always look forward to this time of year for these harvests because they remind me of just how bountiful and decadent Mother Nature can be.
For flower gardeners, it is much the same. We work all spring and early summer, and for a long time everything seems beautiful but not necessarily awe inspiring. Every summer it will hit me one day towards the end of July that I am there; I am at the peak of summer. And I take a deep breath and soak in the joys of my garden with all of my senses. Then I reach for my clippers. Indulging in a fresh bouquet from my garden is much like picking and eating the perfect peach. With the right blend of bountiful (and drought tolerant) flowers, you can start cutting in the mid summer and keep right on going until the frost. Besides the riot of color that you can add to your table, you can also indulge in a mixture on scents that will delight anyone. Never underestimate the joy of cutting flowers.
The best advice when picking yourself an extravagant bouquet is to follow no rules. Pick some of any color, and if you see a branch or some foliage that you like, cut that too. You will find that, ultimately, when it comes to enjoying the fruits of nature'screations, all colors work with each other. The following are a few long blooming, long lasting varieties of drought tolerate flowers to consider planting for your future outdoor and indoor pleasures: sunflowers, callendula, agastache cana, hyssops, echanacea, daisies, cosmos, russian sage, daylillies and guara. Of course, there are many, many options, but if you start with these you will have a riot of shapes, colors, textures, and scents, perfect for indulging in the in the height of summer madness.
