Deadheading? Make Mini Bouquets!

It's mid-summer and most plants and flowers start to look a bit wild and overgrown. Cutting them back makes them look neater and will often make the plant produce a second flush of blooms.  And what do you do with the cuttings?  Like most people, I bet you toss them in the trash or into the compost pile.  Well, I decided to try something different. How about making mini bouquets?

You can use anything you like as a vase.  For this particular mini flower arrangement, I used  a recycled small jelly jar and tucked in snippets of flowers that I took from flowerpots on my back porch.  This one is a mix of cosmos, marigold, candytuft, and lemon thyme. 

Petunias  get very leggy in mid-summer and definately benefit from a  hard pruning.  In just a few weeks they will look robust and full again!  Since these red petunias are very short stemmed, I chose to put them in a recycled glass candle holder.  

Get creative!  Use containers you already have in your home.   A little white milk pitcher makes a cute vase for this small assortment of dwarf snapdragons, cosmos, lambs ear, a bit of lavender, and viola.

Wine glasses aren't only for wine.  Fill them with cuttings from red petunias.  

Display your mini bouquets any way you like.  Alone ... or grouped together.   The choice is yours!

Happy Gardening!