The garden flowers are in full bloom, and there is a simple pleasure in cutting armloads to bring indoors to brighten the home with color and fragrance.  I am not in favor of stiff organized displays arranged according to “rules.”  I hate rules.  Just pick armloads of flowers, stick the largest ones in a vase, and then place the remaining flowers to fall where they may.  Try to match the flowers to the size of your bouquet, pick with an eye to color, and try to limit your largest blooms to odd numbers, say three huge dahlias, or three gladioli.  Place this framework of blooms, tall and short, to form a roughly triangular shape.  Then fill in the blank spots.

                Any container that holds water, and even some that won’t, can be used to hold flowers.  For fun try putting jelly jars or empty cans inside baskets, hats, or even boots, to convert them into flower filled vases.  Add a touch of hydrogen peroxide to the water to extend the life of your arrangements.  Try lining up various size jam jars across a picnic table in gently curving shapes.  Fill with a variety of flowers to provide a pretty touch to a summer supper.    Fake crystal glass salt and pepper shakers make wonderful containers for tinier blooms.  Try bunches of Johnny-jump-ups, violas, or violets, mixed with miniature roses, and save the tops from liquid laundry detergent bottles.  They make wonderful throw-away vases for tiny desk top bouquets.

September is a time to tidy up the garden.  It’s time to shop for fruit trees and shrubs.  The spring bulb catalogs start hitting the mailboxes right about now and in our maritime climate, cooler weather doesn’t mean you have to put away the shovel.  There are plenty of outdoor jobs to do, new plants to situate, so get out, and enjoy what is left of that summer sun, before the winter storms that come racing in off the Pacific send you back in doors.