The English Garden Raleigh Florist Blog

As usual the day my day started with reading the headlines at CNN.com when I found a great article contributed by writer Bob Greene on how summer can be our most productive and fruitful time of the year not just a series of lazy afternoons sipping lemonade by the pool.  We had planned to be pretty lazy this afternoon even though we didn’t have any lemonade in the fridge and we didn’t anticipate going to the neighborhood pool since Viv was at a friend’s house and she is the only reason I will don a bathing suit. Warren and I had to run in to the shop for awhile to handle the daily rituals of watering the plants, checking on the cooler and making a few deliveries. Five hours later inspired by the vibrant summer skies and one too many cups of coffee, we had reconfigured the workroom, helped a nice gentleman with anniversary flowers, and redesigned our front displays (with some beautiful new items worth checking out). Now we just had to sustain that energy as we planned to repurpose 220 square feet of sod left from our design work at Raleigh Fashion Week http://www.strut09.com/. What was dressing a walk-way a week ago is now framing one my flower beds where delicate sprouts of cosmos, zinnias, daisies and phlox promise to offer phenomenal summer color in the coming weeks. I guess you could say I am a “scratch” gardener experimenting with a little of this and a little of that. My efforts are often hit and miss but this year the early results are looking pretty promising. Maybe I will finally fill out and fax in that application to take Master Gardener classes. Viv and I planted hundreds of flower and vegetable seeds and we have been keeping a close eye on them with the anticipation of fresh corn on the grill and vibrant zinnias on the table. If we have a bumper crop, who knows maybe some of those blooms will end up in an English Garden bouquet?