A bouquet for a day

My intention was purely to deadhead spent-flowers so that I could carry the routine thrips insecticide spraying.

TIP 1: It is one of the best practices to deadhead all blooms before spraying as the tiny droplets of the spray solution often miss the inside of the blooms. Inside the many and thick layers of petals, always is the best home for thrips.

TIP 2: Usually I would quickly toss the flowers away in a plastic bag and close it at once so the thrips clinging to the flowers would have no chance of escaping to thin air. It is indeed alarming that 1 single adult thrips can produce up to 200-300 of eggs. A garden can easily be infested by merely few dozens thrips.

Lovely distraction

But my intention was distracted as I was cutting the flower one by one. Instead of putting them in a plastic bag like I always do, I hold them in a bouquet fashion on my left hand. My thought was I’ll soon get a plastic bag on my way to the other side of the garden. It is always better to put away the flower in the plastic bag as soon as it is cut but I was slightly lazy that day.

I was captivated by how beautiful the bouquet was as I added more and more flowers and later cancelled the idea of putting them in a plastic bag. Well, at least until I was done savoring the beauty and taking shots of the masterpiece.

TIP 3: If your garden is free from thrips or its heavy infestation, using your spent flowers as cut flowers can be a pretty good idea. The flowers do not have to be half open as needed to like true cut flowers, they can be full blown or almost spent. This way, you can have longer bloom time in the garden but also a bouquet for a day.

Least distracted

The splash of colors and my 9-months old daughter sleeping in the background.

"Roses are red my love, violets are blue, sugar is sweet my love, but not as sweet as you"

Bobby Vinton - Roses Are Red