In A Vase on Monday: Fit for a Queen

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On this momentous day in history I am joining the weekly meme with a nod to Queen Elizabeth.

The perennial sunflower ‘Lemon Queen’ and annual sunflower ‘Velvet Queen’ feature – along with an enormous yellow self-seeded sunflower – in my glorious vase today. They are partly a little washed out, as it has rained almost non-stop all week. I am not complaining, and neither is the garden! However, I do hope it remains dry in London for the thousands of people assembled there to watch the funeral procession today.

 

Not many of my sunflowers survived the summer, but as some of the flowers were bent to the ground, heavy with raindrops, I decided to cut them anyway.

 

I added a deep red Gaillardia at the centre, some of the last unspoilt stems of Golden Rod, Verbena bonariensis, the royal red Persicaria ‘Blackfield’ (my current favourite for withstanding the drought best 😃) and some Miscanthus ‘Federweisser’.

Do visit our meme host, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. She has a lovely red, white and blue arrangement in tribute to the occasion.

In a Vase on Monday: A September Sigh

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Along with some recent rain showers (some of which have been quite decent), cool nights and misty mornings are reviving the garden. So my vase today is simply a big sigh of September loveliness. 😃

Japanese Anemone ‘Serenade’, with a mix of asters, some Calamagrostis and a few strands of Gaura.

Thanks to Cathy, at Rambling in the Garden, for hosting this meme.

Have a lovely week, and happy gardening!

 

In a Vase on Monday: Relief

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I am back to join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden with her lovely meme after a couple of weeks off.

The summer was a trying one, but the lower night time temperatures recently plus two whole days of light rain have provided some relief. I wouldn’t exactly say the garden has sprung back to life, but after chopping back the plants that suffered most I can at least bare to look at it again, and as you can see from my vases, I do have some flowers to pick still! 😃

First the pastels:

Perennial sweet pea, Cosmos, Echinacea, Verbena, Agastache, Sedum, Scabiosa, Miscanthus and Asters along with a lovely creamy white Heuchera flower which gets ten out of ten for surviving the heat!

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Then a few hotter colours in my newest vase – a cheapie red glass bottle found at my local supermarket for a song. 😉

Orange Cosmos, Tithonia, Calamagrostis, Gaillardia, Persicaria, Plumbago, a red and a blue Salvia,  and a poppy seedhead.

I must admit the apples are also from the supermarket – we will have a few to harvest soon, but not as many as last year. But the vegetables should make up for that; the beans and zucchini were wonderful and I still have over twenty butternut squash to harvest!

Hope you have had a good summer and are looking forward to autumn as much as I am – my favourite time of year. 😃

In a Vase on Monday: Pink Serenade

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Anemone ‘Serenade’ is flowering, so before it gets spoilt by the rain (Ha Ha! Note the sarcasm!) I picked a couple of them for today’s vase.

I decided to stay with the pink theme. Pink vase, pink Scabiosa, pink Cosmos and pink Knapweed.

Along with the Knapweed, the only thing growing in the open ‘grass’ is the Queen Anne’s Lace, so I added some of that and some Calamagrostis, Deschampsia and Stipa.

 

The upturned log I have placed the vase on is cracking and will probably fall apart soon, but it has made the yard look rustic over the past two years. 😃

I am linking in to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Cathy invites us to join her in sharing a vase of flowers from in or around our gardens each Monday. So pop over for an idea of what is flowering around the globe. 😃

Have a good week, and if you are waiting for rain I do hope you see some.

☔️😃☔️

Six on Saturday, 13th August 2022

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Here in Germany, like in many other parts of Europe, there has been practically no rain since late spring. The garden is parched, and no amount of watering seems to make a difference. The strong winds have been relentless here, drying the ground and burning up foliage. Our trees are wilting, shrubs in the hedges we planted are dying, and the flower beds have all but been abandoned to their fate. I know so many of you are also lamenting the lack of rain. It is frustrating, but we can do little about it. So I shall focus on some of the positive things this August.

1. My vegetable garden has done well and I have harvested more than we can eat. My freezer is bursting at the seams! The yellow wild cherry tomatoes are the most productive and easy to care for tomatoes I have ever grown, and taste good too. I have also grown some sweetcorn for the first time this year and we have eaten a few cobs already, although really we should wait another week or two for them to fatten up. Delicious!

2. My Japanese Anemone opened a few days ago and is looking happy, despite a few brown leaves. I love this deep pink one – ‘Serenade’ – a pleasant change from the paler ones that seem more common.

3. The Perovskia looks magical (with the Gaura just about hanging on in the background). In fact, it looks better for the lack of rain!

4. Stipa gigantea is still shining, here with the best of the Tithonia finally reaching about a metre (the others are less than 30 cm high) and a couple of sunflowers – sadly not as grand as last year when I had dozens of enormous sunflowers, but sunflowers nonetheless.

5. The Gaillardia are looking good – one of the toughest flowers I have, flowering non-stop despite gale-force winds and scorching sun. And loved by the bees etc.

6. And finally, a bit of an oddity…. a Hellebore flowering in the full sun in August!

I realised when finishing this post that I had six photos and it is Saturday. So I am finally participating in Jon the Propagator’s ‘Six on Saturday’ meme for the first time. If you visit Jon’s blog you will find links to other gardeners posting six garden-related things on a Saturday. Many thanks to Jon for hosting this meme. 😃

Happy gardening, and wishing all those in a drought lots of long and gentle showers!

🌧🌧🌧

 

In a Vase on Monday: Glorious Globes

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This Monday, after a week off, I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden again for her weekly vase meme. And I decided to choose a global theme today – literally!

Globes.

After all the hot and harsh winds over the past few weeks, with no rain in sight, the flower beds are literally disintegrating. But this has meant structure is playing more of a role, and I have noticed a lot of round shapes in both flowers and seedheads.

Firstly an Allium seedhead and the fresh Allium ‘Millenium’ which is the latest flowering one I have found. I also added a Nigella seedhead (slightly oval), and a sedum – also much rounder in form before actually flowering.

And the Echinops of course – a perfect globe. The orange seed heads of Gaillardia too.

Then the Succisella inflexa ‘Frosted Pearl’ (which is very drought tolerant) and the seedhead of Scabiosa perfecta.

(The grass I added is my current favourite: Deschampsia ‘Schottland’. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but have slowly fallen in love with it!)

The Scabiosa close up is quite remarkable…

Naturally I used a globe shaped vase and found a prop to match too….

This ‘marble’ came from the Kugelmühle (‘Marble Mill’) near Berchtesgaden in the German Alps, right on the border to Austria. Founded in the seventeenth century, this mill ground stones to perfect globes, which were sold as marbles – toys for children – exported via Rotterdam and London to all over the world. There were in fact many such mills in the region in past centuries. This particular mill is still working, and is a lovely spot for a walk in a shady ravine on a hot summer’s day. And there is of course a beer garden for a refreshing drink too! Aah, nice memories of holidays in the mountains!

Have a good week, and stay cool! 😎