Wildflowers Bouquet

Wildflowers bouquet out of my garden for a neighbor. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Wildflowers Bouquet

This is more the kind of bouquet we think of adding to brighten a room. Although we often grow specific flower varieties for cut flowers, these wildflowers all have long stems so they can easily be added to a center table flower vase. They are also long lasting in the vase.

What may be surprising is that all of these flowers are wildflowers. Can you name the flowers?

There are two orange daylilies, the single variety and the doubles. Both of these flowers are entirely edible.

The yellow tickseed coreopsis can easily be used as a filler flower.

The tiny purple flowers are Dames’ Rocket, usually fading out mid-June.

The light purple flowers are Bee Balm, also known as Monarda.

And the last flower is Queen Anne’s Lace, basically a wild carrot.

By themselves someone might look at each and say weeds. Together they are going to brighten someone’s home decor and make their day!

Charlotte

June Wildflowers Bouquet

These are Missouri wildflowers cut from starts I am planting. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

June Wildflowers Bouquet

In addition to adding a touch of nature and beauty to a room. I am going to add “relaxing” to the reasons why you should have a bouquet of flowers in your most-used room.

This is a bouquet of Missouri native wildflowers from a pile of plants someone tossed. The wildflowers were broken at the top of the plants so I cut them off and placed them in a jar of water before trimming the rest of the plants so I could more easily plant them in my garden.

By cutting off the flowering sections, the plants will concentrate their energy on establishing their roots in their new homes and may bloom again later in the growing season.

In the bouquet, there is a mixture of hardy perennials that will start blooming this month and continue until fall. How do I know?

In addition to having some of these already growing in my garden, I easily keep track of what is blooming in nature through Missouri Department of Conservation’s Natural Events calendar. These calendars are usually available October through the beginning of the new year.

Missouri Department of Conservation’s Natural Events calendar lists what wildflowers are in bloom. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This wonderful annual calendar also has a natural event on every day of the week including when hummingbirds migrate and when honey bees swarm. This year, the honey bee swarm season began May 9, 2019.

These calendars are now staples in the beginning beekeeping classes I teach through Rolla Bee Club. It is helpful as a beekeeper to know what is blooming because that is the source of nectar and pollen for insects.

Now that you see the list of Missouri wildflowers in bloom, can you identify some of them in this flower bouquet?

Can you identify some of the Missouri wildflowers? (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Here is a hint, purple coneflowers are among these bouquet flowers.

And yes, I find it very relaxing to sit in my den sofa and look at the bouquet of flowers. Some of them are still opening up so it’s interesting to see the flower bouquet evolve as the flowers bloom.

Charlotte