Birdie Bouquet

Rudbeckia, Camphor Hyssop, Cosmos,  White Boneset, 

Feng Shui says "no."  Dried flowers in bouquets in the house are dead flowers in the house.  Not a good thing.  Outside is a different matter, I'm sure.

When several clumps of Rudbeckia finished their bloom cycle, I remembered the birds--Gold Finches and Lesser Finches--that like to feed on the seeds.  Rather than stuff the unattractive dried foliage and flowers into the yard debris bin, a plan popped into the Things I get to do today.  I'd stake all the seed-food flowers in front of my dining room window.  We would watch the happy flocks settle one bird at a time like the timid flakes of a season's first snow.  They come in the morning for breakfast right about the same time we are having ours.

This morning we noted several other types of spent flowers that the Finches were trying. So why not make a dried flower bouquet of all the seedy sorts in the yard that the birds might enjoy, all in one place--an edible flower arrangement--a Birdie Bouqet.

Art by Gravity

Just in from the yard, flower heads bent down

Two days later, each stem is artfully and elegantly shaped 

You've seen it here before.  Gravity and flowers, the pull down makes the flowers face up.  Gravity has  such an artful way, twirling and swirling the stems with elegance a human hand knows nothing of.













This year slender branches of the Rudbeckia seem to break off at the central stalk.  Just enough connection remains to keep the flowers alive. Gathering these for house flowers is part of my Things I get to do today. Arranging them over the next few days is what Nature gets to do today.