Products I Recommend – Benson's Best Buds

Literature

Cut Flower Garden by Erin Benzakein of Floret Farms. A book that highly influences me and my cut flower garden!
Discovering Dahlias by Erin Benzakein of Floret Farms. It actually hasn’t been released yet, but I have already pre-ordered, and trust absolutely any and all content released by Floret!

Electric tree pruning saw – with over a dozen trees on our property, this was a must-have to clean up our yard. Andrew loves how long you can extend this saw to reach (12 feet!), and the battery lasts surprisingly long.
Power washer – my parents bought this for Andrew’s birthday last year. It works well, is reasonably priced, and can keep any DIY-er occupied for hours! Clean your fence, your car, the exterior of your house… you name it, this will clean it!
Loppers – my go-to tool for when we need to break down our tree branches. Our neighborhood requires tree branches to be contained in yard bags, to be picked up by our trash collectors. I’m not the strongest lumberjack around, and these guys enable me to cut through thicker diameters than others (~3 in. thick).
Leather gloves – when you’re working with rose bushes, these gloves are a must to protect your hands!
Gardening shears – these are the versions we have and they work quite well!

Bamboo 4 ft. garden stakes – used to support tall flowers like Dahlias and climbing flowers like Sweet Peas
Netting – used in conjunction with the bamboo or metal stakes, to support numerous taller plants at the same time
Freeze cloth – I use this to protect my flowers when the temperatures dip below 32 F.

Kelp Fertilizer
Fish Fertilizer – purchased at local store
Compost Manure – purchased at local store
5 Gallon Bucket
Water pump – an unexpectedly very handy thing to have in your garage. I’ve also used this to pre-sprout my ranunculus.
Organza bag – this is used to keep all that nastiness of the manure contained for easy clean up. Another product I’ve also used to pre-sprout ranunculus!

I looove this label maker. I use it to label all sorts of things – most importantly, my flowers! I wrap the labels around small garden stakes and place them where the related flowers are planted.
To suit my ~aesthetic~, I use this label tape. These tapes all have gold writing and come with clear, black, and white tape. I mostly use clear to label items inside my house, black to label the flowers on the stakes, and white is still TBD.
The previously mentioned garden stakes, which help significantly to remind you where exactly you planted what flowers.

Epoxy Resin Kit
Silicone Molds – I got these to start with, but I’m not sure if they are deep enough to hold some of the larger flowers I intend to preserve.
Silica Gel for Flower Drying – I’m trying this method out first, as it is supposed to better preserve the color and shape of the bloom.
Clothes Pins – if you’d rather air dry the flowers
Clothing air-dry hangers – great for air-drying up to 32 flowers at once!

Seed starting cells – I like these trays made of peat moss, which can be planted directly in the ground
Seed starting mix
Spray bottle – to mist the seedlings
Queen Red Lime Zinnia Seeds – the brand I purchased is unavailable at this time, but these are my favorite breed of zinnia! Zinnias are relatively low maintenance and easy to grow when they are given enough water and sunlight.

Set of 10 bud vases – versatile, great value, and perfect for when your garden is infrequently popping up blooms at the start of the season!

Giant Leaf-Picker-Upper things – our neighbor has a set that he let us borrow, and it just feels so dang inefficient to pick them up with my bare hands now!

Our yard is plagued by slugs, snails, and grubs.

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