Paradise Road Flower Farm,LLC

04/20/2023

10/22/2022

Coming along, slowly. But I'm getting er done. Little more sheathing, house wrap tomorrow then I can start on the siding and get the door and windows in.

10/10/2022

Anyone in Oregon looking or would take a barn cat or 2? I'm getting them fixed and fostering right now. Poor abandoned cats on our street in Salem.

10/02/2022

Lady Darleen...

09/29/2022

OK, amazing!

08/30/2022

Pink Pearl!

08/28/2022

Labyrinth

08/28/2022

The dahlias are coming!

08/25/2022

Oh the flowers that are coming! Oh wait. They're here!!!

08/22/2022

Double Jill makes her debut!

08/19/2022

08/14/2022

WaHoooo

08/10/2022

Such a slow start with this rainy spring then the high temperatures aren't really great for a lot of things and the stress can slow growth too! 🙄 But finally! Dahlias are coming. And harvesting in general is happening. Bouquets available for $20 & $30. Message me if your interested.

08/09/2022

Chrysanthemums are coming!!!! These aren't perfect but mums are a fall crop. They'll be happier when the weather cools off more.

08/07/2022

Celosia looking pretty cool!

08/07/2022

Everything has been sooooo slow this year but finally, the flowers are coming!

08/07/2022

After months of my camera not opening on my phone, I finally bit the bullet and did a hard reset on my phone. Look!! Content.....finally!!

06/17/2022

Content, FINALLY! It's been such a wet cold spring but it kind of worked in my favor because I've been so behind and the rain saved potted plants while we were gone to Hawaii!!

05/09/2022

All the dahlia tubers are unpacked and inventoried! Whew! If you would like to see the list of tubers for sale email me at [email protected] and I will send it to you. Here in the PNW we normally would be planting out by Mother's Day Weekend but it has been so wet and cold that I am waiting to plant out. I am waking all my tubers up in my grow room. Comments below has picture od "some" of the inventory available.⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

03/21/2022

Soon it will be time to plant Dahlia tubers and other warm weather flowers. Send me a message at [email protected] if you'd like to see my inventory list of dahlia tubers!

03/07/2022

📣🎶 Spring is in the air!! and Tulips are coming, along with spring bouquets! If you are interested in spring bouquets let me know and I will put you on an email list when they are ready. Message me here or at [email protected] Prices will be Medium $20 and Large for $30. 🌷🌷🌷 {Deliveries are available for an additional charge. Otherwise you must brave our street in the 4 corners area (State and Lancaster, Salem Oregon, and learn why the business is called "Paradise Road" Flower Farm~~wink, wink.}

03/05/2022

Good morning everyone,

It's dahlia tuber time! Time to thinking about varieties you want to add this season and if your in the Pacific Northwest, it's time to start waking your tubers up if you want to take cuttings or get a jump on planting out.

Taking cuttings is not terribly difficult and really is a skill that all dahlia lovers should master. Maybe you want extra plants in your landscape. There also are some varieties that are not good tuber producers. For those varieties, the few meager tubers you get, sometimes don't store well because they are so thin, think pencils. Pam Howden comes to mind. So you end up losing your variety during the winter storage process.

To avoid this problem, you need to hedge against disaster. Taking cuttings in fall and overwintering under a grow light is one way to keep a coveted variety safe. Another technique is growing a cutting in a small pot buried in the ground for the season, called a pot tuber. At the end if the season, you lift the pot, cut the plant away and store the pot with your tubers. The pot acts as a home for the tubers produced and keeps them safer from shriveling up over the winter in storage.

I'm beginning to pull orders for people and shipping the tubers. If you're interested in seeing my inventory please send your email address and I will send you to Google doc to review.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

~Christine 🌻

02/28/2022

One year ago, the ice storm of 2021

02/25/2022

Kitties in the grow room you say? Ummmmm, I love our cats but Obie got locked in the grow room overnight and wreaked a little havoc! Luckily most of the trays have humidity domes on them but he did dig through the dahlia tubers that are starting. Again, luckily all the tubers are numbered so I could identify them and get them all set back in their correct places. 🙃🙄

02/22/2022

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!🌻
That statement may seem far fetched, especially with the temperatures predicted for Salem, OR, the next few day being down into the 20s! However, the time is upon us to be sowing cool weather flowers! Yes it is!

This is the time of year in the Willamette Valley that we can begin our early spring flowers known as hardy annuals, such as Bachelor Buttons, Sweet Peas, Snap Dragons, Poppies, Honeywort, Calendula, Larkspur, Love in the Mist, Pansies and Cress!

Cress, by the way is a phenomenal ornamental that will take your arrangements to the next level. Orach is another fantastic filler. Both Cress and Orach make amazing seed pods and add depth and interest to your arrangements and are so simple to grow. Fillers may not feel exciting when you are sowing them, but when you harvest some to add to a bouquet, you will become very excited about interesting fillers because of what they provide to an arrangement!

Hardy annuals are part of a hard working group of flowers that are able to withstand low temperatures and even thrive in them. Sweet Peas and Snap Dragons, along with several others, will slow down and not do well once temperatures reach 80 degrees F. Here in the Willamette Valley, because we tend to have mild winters, many of these can be sown in the fall and relish the thaw and freeze process that happens during the winter which actually aids in their germination process. If you miss sowing in the fall and hear or read, "sow as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring", that is NOW! All too often gardeners think "early spring" happens in April or May but that is actually too late for these plants and while you may get some flowers, it's nothing like the show of blooms you will get if you sow well before the last frost date, which here is around April 15-20th.

Many of these plants will reward you by reseeding on their own, and, once planted, you will never be without them. You can also collect the seeds if you prefer a more organized garden.

Years ago, I planted one package of mauve-pink Poppies and they have spread all over the property. It's fine with me that they spread like they do because if they are in a bed that I am planting with someone else, they are very easy to pull. While they do have a semi long tap root, they still are not hard to pull at the end of their season. They also make an amazing and interesting seed pod that can add interest to your arrangements. You can see a few in the photo. One thing to know about Poppies though is that they are what we call a "dirty" flower and require an extra step when mixing them in an arrangement with other flower because the sap that bleeds from their stem will foul the water and thus shorten the life of the other flowers. When harvesting Poppies, burn the stems to cauterize them so that they stop omitting this toxic substance. The seed pods of poppies last a long, long time in the vase and can be dried at the end of their season as well, but they turn a tan color. I should mention that while Poppies are in their flowering stage they are difficult to harvest for arrangements. The flowers are delicate and do not hold up well in the vase, and it's best to enjoy them at this stage, in the garden. Also, they have a very interesting characteristic of opening in the morning and closing up as dusk. I love watching this process of how they put themselves to bed for the night.

The photo I posted is a very early spring bouquet I was taking to some friends I was having dinner with. I did not spend much time gathering my materials but quickly walked the grounds and grabbed some Love in the Mist which was at various stages of development from flowering to setting seed pods, a few Poppy seed pods, some Himalayan Jasmine, which people talk online about being "invasive" but I have 2 of these shrubs and started a 3rd this season and have never had any trouble with them: 1. getting too big, that's what pruning is for, and 2. spreading seed and starting where I do not want them, and their foliage is just lovely. The little purple flower is some kind of Fritillaria I believe but I planted them so many years ago, I no longer know. They grow from a tiny bulb.

I hope that this message finds you well and inspired to start some early cold hardy annuals soon! And may your day be beautiful and flowery!

02/22/2022

Welcome to our flower farm . . .