Subtle Shifting in Coastal Fall Colors
We are fully into fall. It’s time for the “Shifting of Seasons.” Not really the changing from Summer to Fall. It’s Ocean Shores, after all. We don’t have four real seasons that actually change from one to the next. What we have is a dry, warmer “season” that lasts two — or in good years — three months, and a wet (really wet) cooler “season” the rest of the year. October is usually when the rains return, and yes, we saw that happening last month. We are beginning our yearly slide into what in other parts of the country is known as a change of season.
This year, we did have a spectacular “dry warmer season” that could have really been called a true summer. Ocean Shores even had one day when thermometers were flirting with THREE digits! I was reading about that from my niece’s air-conditioned home in Ohio, where outside temps had been hovering around 90 for the previous couple of weeks. What an anomaly Ocean Shores hotter than Ohio!
For now, take a good look outside. Do you see any of those “Colorful Fall Flowers” I wrote about earlier: nasturtiums, echinacea, rudbeckia, marigolds, chrysanthemums, dianthus? If you’re lucky you might even have some nicely formed roses. If you still have any fresh blooms left, you can bring them inside to brighten up your home for a nice contrast to the gray outside.
Cut them in the morning and prepare them directly as soon as you bring them inside. Select your favorite vase, and without water inside yet, place each flower where you think it will look nice. As you trim each stem to the best length, cut on a diagonal and flatten the end of each stem so that you open as much of the last inch of the stem as you can. The idea is to open up more area where the stem can take up water.
Once you have your arrangement set, get a pitcher, or pan to mix up your “flower water” in. Warm water is best. There are lots of discussion about how warm. Some say as hot as possible; others say lukewarm.
I use the same test I used to get my kids’ baby formula at the right temperature — place a few drops on the inside of my wrist and shoot for bath-water warm. Put about as much as you think you’ll need to fill the vase into your preparation pitcher. Now add some “food” to your vase, to help the arrangement last longer. Following various garden advice, I’ve tried a teaspoon or so of refined granulated sugar or a crushed-up adult aspirin. (During my go-organic days in college I tried raw or brown Sugar, but the flowers didn’t take it up as well, the flowers didn’t last as long as they did in plain water, and it left a sticky mess in the vase.)
Being a scientist, I even tried a “test” to see which water preparation produced the longest lasting flowers. I cut enough flowers of the same species and placed one in each vase using plain water of various temperatures. The flower in the room temp water lasted about a day longer than the others. So, the next step was to get more flowers, and to prepare vases of room temp water each with one of the following: plain water, a teaspoon of sugar, a crushed aspirin, some mysterious “plant food” that sometimes comes with store-bought flowers.
So, the results …
The flower in the plain water shriveled up first. The other three flowers in the “food water” lasted eight days, about two days longer. Any of the additives seemed to increase the vase flowers longevity, but all seemed about the same. So put your cut flowers in room temp water that has either a teaspoon of sugar or a crushed aspirin in it to keep them looking their best for a couple of days longer. Commercial plant food didn’t seem any better than sugar or aspirin, so I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it. (I repeated this experiment with some store-bought roses, however, the experiment came out the same as when I had used my own roses.)
If you have lavender in bloom now, that’s even easier. Just cut as much as you can and trim all the stems so that they are all about the same height. Put them in a vase with NO water and let them dry. Another way to dry lavender is to gather a handful and trim to a similar height as before. Then tie into vase-sized bundles and hang upside down. Some say the flowers keep their color longer. Although the lavender scent will fade, the blooms will last the entire season or until the dust that eventually gathers on them disturbs you. Then just toss them!
Check out Garden by the Sea, Ocean Shores community garden, behind Galilean Church at 824 Ocean Shores Boulevard where you will find a productive maritime community garden and enthusiastic, experienced gardeners to share information, inspiration, and garden stories with. For questions, comments about this article, gardening in general or to share your gardening experiences, please email Info@GardenByTheSeaOceanShores.org
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, November 2021.
