Most of the peonies, the classic swanlike ones with a scarlet thread through their centers, are open, and most of the double pinks as well (my least favorite). Iris is open everywhere, the huge red poppies, the beauty bush, and a bright pink single rose...Everything is as dry as a bone. I got up at six to water, and to pick flowers for the house.
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Who doesn't love to pick flowers? Children, certainly, gather dandelions and present to smiling moms. On summer days at the lake, I recall reaching over the side of a boat to pick water lilies, or lily pads as we called them, from a quiet bay. Even husbands, from time to time, will pick flowers from the field or a sprig from a flowering shrub.

And gardeners, definitely, pick flowers. I've yet to walk into a friend's house in June and not see some of her best flowers on display on the kitchen counter.

A brief history.
Cutting flowers from outside, bringing them indoors and arranging them in vases has been going on for a long, long time. Margaret Fairbanks Marcus, in her book Period Flower Arrangement, wrote that the earliest depiction was from a king's tomb in Thebes, Egypt, in the 14th century B.C. The drawings on the walls contain bouquets of lotus flowers.

Katherine S. White commented on flower bouquet history in Onward and Upward in the Garden, "The evidence is there...in the patterns on early Persian carpets and brocades, in Greek sculpture, in Roman and Byzantine mosaics, and in Chinese, Indian, and Japanese art of all kinds..."

She later concluded in her erudite way, "I daresay the earliest cave woman brought flowers into the cave."

You need some vases.
Fundamental to picking flowers and bringing them inside is to have a good selection of vases. You never know what you'll be cutting so you need some big, tall ones and some little ones. You need a fancy vase or two and several simple ones.

Suzy Bales, author of Garden Bouquets and Beyond, offered her advice. "Although I have been collecting vases for decades, more often than not I repeatedly use my favorites. These include a simple green pottery jug, a glass celery jar, and an orange pitcher."

Just as containers are vital to a container garden, Bales wrote that vases "...can take an arrangement from so-so to sensational..."

Start picking now.
June is a great month to cut flowers. Two of the stalwarts of the garden—roses and peonies—come into full bloom. Baptisias, lady's mantle, iris, alliums, salvias, daisies, lupines, hardy geraniums and poppies are also open.

In addition to flowers, though, consider picking other plants and plant parts. Bales wrote, "I cut indiscriminately from any plant, anywhere—container gardens, flower borders, foundation plantings, vegetable gardens, and the roadside when no one is looking."

Here are a few to try.
Shrubs: blueberry, coreopsis, dogwood, honeysuckle, hydrangea, mockorange, ninebark, serviceberry, viburnum.
Vines: bittersweet, clematis, grape, honeysuckle, hops, ivy, porcelainberry, sweet pea.
Others: false solomon's seal, grasses, herbs, heuchera foliage, hosta foliage.

This also appears in the Askov American, Askov, Minnesota.

Flowers from Jeanne's garden on display at the library.