The view from the kitchen window includes all varieties of blooming beauties on these late-spring days.

Why not add the petals of some of those flowers to the dishes you are cooking?

The petals of pot marigolds, or calendula, are recommended for salads, as are chive blossoms, rose petals and dandelions.

The bright yellow dandelion you remember from warm afternoons during childhood also can be battered and fried. The delicate young flowers are said to taste like fried mushrooms when prepared this way.
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Q: Can you recommend some cut flowers that I can take from my garden that will stay fresh for a long time in a vase? I like to bring flowers to my husband’s gravesite and it seems the lilacs and rhododendrons that I bring wilt in just a day or two.

– T. S., Kirkland

M.B.: First, my sympathies at your loss. Many flowering shrubs can be used as cut flowers if you know the secret of conditioning. This means you should cut the blooms in the morning when they are full of moisture and then pound the woody stems after cutting so that they can more easily absorb water. Next place the cut branches into tall buckets of cool water and let them sit or condition for a day or two in a darkened room. (more…)

There it is, by that log. I have to bend low for a good look. The flower’s color is far more impressive than its size. It’s a rich magenta, almost a purple-pink. Absolutely beautiful.

This flower, barely 3 inches tall and growing beside a moldering log on a riverbank, is called the fringed polygala. It resembles an orchid but belongs to the milkwort family. The polygala always blooms in the second half of May and lasts into June, making it something of a link between spring flowers and summer flowers.

Wildflowers are almost like migrant birds in that, if we pay attention, it’s possible to predict both where individual species can be found and virtually the order in which they will appear. For a while. The earliest flowers are fairly easy to notice and record. But when spring reaches it height, the explosion of plants and leaves and blossoms is too fast, too voluminous, for even the most dedicated observer to keep pace. That, too, is like dealing with arriving birds.
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Despite the ongoing drought and lack of spring rains, wildflowers are abundant along some riparian areas of Yavapai County.

One of the most easily accessible areas to view a variety of wildflowers right now is the Page Springs area, especially along the trails at the Page Springs Fish Hatchery in the Verde Valley.

The yellow flowers of the prickly pear cactus are profuse, and we had to stop for a longer look at the stunning staghorn cholla flowers in front of one home.
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I have always had an aversion to spraying pesticides, herbicides, or anything ending with “-cides,” partly out of laziness, partly out of ignorance, but largely out of fear. There was also the example of my mother’s garden, flourishing and feeding us without chemical help.

When I planted the white Rosa Rugosa “Sir Thomas Lipton” in 1996 - gasp! - can this be right? - I hoped it would mitigate the boring two-story east wall of the house. I trained it, clipping and tying the long stems to a purchased iron trellis. I think it looks a bit silly now, out of scale and style with the rest of the place, but it seemed perfect then. I planted common Clematis “Jackmanii” with it to twine its way through the rose canes and mingle its purple flowers with the white roses. Mrs. Paepcke had a wonderful one that romped over a wall near a gate. Mine has not romped, it straggles. The rose has never fulfilled my optimistic anticipation either; it is neither vigorous nor floriferous and the buds attract aphids. The pair of plants rarely even blooms in sync, and I contemplate replacing them, but when I do get flowers, well! The late garden writer Henry Mitchell said the “Sir Thomas Lipton” flower looks like a white camellia with a superb fragrance. Not too many camellias hereabouts, but I’m sure you get the picture. About the clematis, he said, “No need to be heartsick” if you don’t have any of the rare and fancy kinds since “the garden effect of such old kinds as ‘Jackmanii’ is fine enough.” So I give them another reprieve.
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