Cathy at Rambling in the Garden invites us each Monday to join her in gathering materials from our gardens to put in a vase. As for all the other gardeners who participate, this has become quite a ritual and I do look forward to Mondays like never before!
For this week’s vase I collected some flowers from the garden on Sunday, as the forecast for Monday was even hotter. Well, as I write (at 1pm) it’s 29°C already. Phew!
The Philadelphus has been in flower for a few days now and both the single and the double variety were picked for their cooling effect. They do tend to look as if they are drooping in the heat, but this is purely their growth habit!
A single white Campanula has shown up after all (although not where I scattered the seed!) so I decided to cut that as well.
I added a little pink Spiraea and some Vetch too. (It is so pretty I let it grow here and there).
The frothy white Centranthus looked quite sad after I plucked it from the garden and I wondered how it manages to survive the dry rockery if it is that sensitive. (It perked up an hour or so later). A few hosta leaves were added around the base and the bouquet was tied up with a fern leaf before being placed in a round vase.
It all smells heavenly, although I know we may be moving it away from the dining area soon as we are a bit sensitive to perfumed flowers – except for peonies of course! 😉 Here is a shot of some of the last beauties picked last week. A couple of buds are still hanging on outdoors, so the season has been pretty good in retrospect, and we are just going into the fifth week of them. In even better years the different ones I grow have stretched across six weeks.
If you grow peonies, how long does your peony season last?
Do visit Cathy and all the other vases linked in that are showcasing what gardens around the world have to offer today!
Words and Herbs 
I love Philadelphus but find it doesn’t last at all long in a vase. Do you condition yours? I’m a bit lazy where conditioning is concerned but think it is something I need to start learning more about. It is very hot here today too but rain is threatened for tomorrow.
You are right Christina. It hasn’t lasted much more than 24 hours! I am also lazy about conditioning, and in fact didn’t even think about it yesterday. Even though the flowers have drooped it still smells nice though!
Yes, mine did too. I will still use them in at least one vase a year because I love the perfume.
Your vase is beautiful, Cathy! That is interesting re: Centranthus. It grows in virtually no soil at all here – often between cracks of paving and in brick walls. My peonies seem to have had a very short season this year. They were all late out by about 2 weeks, and the earliest seem to have gone over in a couple of weeks. One, ‘Buckeye Belle’ just frazzled in the heat yesterday! My latest peonies, ‘Duchess de Nemours’ and ‘Paul M. Wild’ are just opening now. Still, I have really enjoyed them. I love peonies so much I would still grow them if they lasted a week.
The Centranthus did perk up once it was in cool water, but doesn’t last well in a vase. My peonies were all early! We usually have peony and elderflower perfuming the garden until mid June but both are practically over already.
I always love your arrangements because they have a casual but put together aesthetic. You definitely have a knack for arranging flowers. Our peonies just started blooming this week and our season lasts for about 3-4 weeks, and during this time, the air smells heavenly.
Thank you Magnolia! Yes, I prefer peony scent to roses in fact. 🙂 Enjoy yours!
Beautiful and sweet smelling vases! Our heat has shifted to actual cold temps in the 50s and 40s…..my veg garden will not like this for a few days but the heat should return next week.
After thinking spring would never come I am now wondering what summer will bring as the heat is very early this year… crazy!
So much beauty. And ahhhh, the fragrance! Today my first peony may just open, so I’ll measure the season and report back. 😉 You are so far ahead of us, maybe due to all the heat you’ve had and our cool spring.
So you have the peony season ahead of you. Lovely!
I like the lighting in the first shot of your vase with the background of the dark shadowy forest in the background…wonderful.
Thank you Karen. Those trees provide some welcome shade in summer! 🙂
Gorgeous vases both. The first one would be perfect for a wedding!
Thanks Peter, and I see what you mean. The colours would certainly suit such an occasion.
I didn’t realize that you could get peony varieties that last such a long time. I have only one peony and it is barely hanging on to dear life. I need to find a different place for it. Your vase looks cool and lush. I can almost smell it here. Happy IAVOM.
No single variety lasts that long, but the peonies in general. My earliest opened in the first week of May, then about two weeks later, just as it faded, the next one opened and a couple of days later the next, and so on. The last ones to open were younger plants. The white Festiva maxima flowers over two or even three weeks, but my plants are very large and have loads of buds and flowers.
I love the light on your vase of peonies, like a blessing on these very special garden ephemerals. Five weeks is a good run, as mine are pretty the same variety, the most I can hope for is 3 or so weeks.
Your big vase is pretty, too, an ode to early summer.
Hope you get a break in the heat soon.
Thanks Eliza. The light on the peonies is from a round skylight in our hall – I suddenly noticed the light was shining directly on the vase like a spotlight, so grabbed the camera quick! 🙂
One of our neighbours has a philadelphus which wasn’t noticeable till last year – but my goodness it stops me in my tracks now!! Your vase of it has a lovely rounded hape and in the house it must be amazing – but not good for your sensitive noses 😦 Thanks for sharing and please don’t frazzle in the heat
Ours must be at least 30 years old, as the house was built and the garden landscaped in the seventies and eighties. I will post a photo of the entire tree soon. 🙂
I love philadelphus and I love the way they are trailing here. It’s a beautiful shape. The scent is evocative for me as we had one in the garden where I grew up. I am establishing them here and one is on the point of flowering!
I didn’t realise for some years that it smells best when cut and brought indoors. In the daytime in the sun it barely smells at all!
That is a lot of white; my favorite color!
I do not grow peonies because they do not get much chill here. Some of my neighbors grew them with no problem. No one can determine why they do so well in some gardens but not others nearby. Some of the best happen to be in spots that are more sheltered from the frost than spots where they do not grow. I am more than satisfied with the many flowers that we ‘can’ grow here, but peonies is one flower that I would like to grow after seeing them at their best in Oregon.
Plants are like humans sometimes – they just have a mind of their own! 😉
Hydrangeas! They are always pink in the Santa Clara Valley. If we try to make them blue, the turn purple, and then right back to pink.
I planted a 4-inch pot of Philadelphus about 2 years ago but it’s still small and hasn’t produced a single bloom as yet but I hope it’ll be as lovely as yours one day! Maybe next winter will bring real rain and give it the boost it needs.
I hope you can coax it to flower for you soon. Mine is a very old shrub, planted by the people who built the house in the 1970s.
Cathy your Philadelphus I love them. The white Campanula is divine. The pink Spiraea is beautiful. The Vetch, here we call it Vicia, I like it a lot. The bouquet is magnificent and full of perfume. You tie the bouquet like a true professional, with hosta leaves and fern! The Peonies of last week are very good! I like them a lot even though I do not have them planted. Put yourself in a cool place Cathy. And I lighting the wood stove because it’s cold. The weather is crazy! Have a good week and lower temperatures. Greetings from Margarita.
Thank you Margarita. I hope it warms up finally this week for you!
Gorgeous. I love your collection of white and pink flowers, Cathy. White Campanula – I’ll have to look out for that; we just have the blue one which is called Canterbury Bells here. Those peonies are rather amazing, too! There are two common-or-garden pink ones in our garden and both the flowers have dropped their petals within about a week of blooming. I do love white and pale pink ones, though, so I should find out more about how to grow them. Hope your sunshine continues but perhaps the heat lowers a little 🙂
Thanks Sam. These campanula are a different type to Canterbury bells – they are Campanula persicifolia. I think peonies are like roses… once you get to know them you fall in love with them! I haven’t got to know any roses well enough yet, but I adore the peonies! 🙂
Oh I thought it was warm here Cathy but it’s all relative 🙂 Your post is a timely reminder for me to check whether our philadelphus is flowering yet. I think that campanulas are often underrated. The flowers are so appealing especially the single ones. A most pleasing to the eye vase which should sooth you when you’re hot and flustered.
It is too hot to work in the garden, so I am glad I have brought some of it indoors for a vase!
Your Philadelphus is beautifully arranged Cathy. Wow, how strange for your weather to be so extreme this summer. The peonies on my four bushes ranged across 2.5 weeks, but were cut short by deluges of rain. It’s wonderful you have them timed to provide 6 weeks of goodness.
Thanks Susie. The timing was nature itself as I had no idea when planting them when they would flower! 🙂
A very pretty vase and bet it smells lovely with the mock orange. After I put my vase together I looked out the window at the back garden and thought I should have added some Philadelphus – one of my favourite plants.
I have one peony with three pink flowers – one out, two in bud. Lovely, but will only last a week or two I fear.
The Philadelphus didn’t last well in a vase, but the perfume was lovely indoors. 🙂
I haven’t seen any Philadelphus in years, my mother had one and arguments would ensue over whether they should be called English Dogwood or Mock Orange. I envy those Peonies!! how wonderful to have them for more than a month!
In Germany they call the Philadelphus ‘False Jasmine’. 🙂
Interesting, probably the closest thing to Jasmine in Germany.
A very pretty vase Cathy, in beautiful sunlight. I like the little touch of pink amongst the white. I planted a phildelphus, but last summer was so hot, I’m not sure it’s going to survive. It’s been without leaves for a long time, but there’s a little green in the stems.
Oh, the poor thing. But it might survive yet – I have had shrubs look like they are dead after a heatwave and they come back the next year as if nothing had happened. 🙂
Beautiful! Peonies are among our favorites, too, if only they stuck around for just a bit longer! But maybe their fleeting presence is part of the mystique 🙂
If you grow two or three different sorts it prolongs the season. 🙂
I’m putting that on the to do list! 🙂
It sounds as though summer has found you, keep cool!
Love the mock orange. It’s one plant which I still need to add, but I’d like a tall one with good fragrance, and apparently that’s too old fashioned for most nurseries to carry. The peonies are just starting, I only have two but am lucky to get 10 days out of them 🙂
The mock orange shrubs are hard to find here too, and larger ones are so expensive, but I would say worth investing in. Cut some of your peonies to enjoy indoors Frank – they might last longer in the house. Yes, our summer began in April – I just came in from a half-hour gardening for a cool shower! 😉
I think I mention every time you display your beautiful peonies that I can’t grow them! I absolutely LOVE this flower! But Campanula is a little more common to me, although I don’t like to call anything that beautiful “common.” 🙂 What lovely Monday arrangements, Cathy!
The campanula are a lovely splash of colour – although mostly blue in my garden!
We’ve had that same kind of heat, Cathy. It wilts all of us, flowers and humans alike. That cats, too. Will you get cooler weather soon?
Your vase is lovely in those whites and creams. You have such an abundance to choose from each week. I’m always impressed. Enjoy your week ahead.
The forecast is for more of the same Alys – hot and muggy with thunderstorms. I am grateful for a slight breeze today though! 🙂 Hope you have a good week too!
Gorgeous, gorgeous! We had a hot end of May–several days of 32C-35C for highs, which is crazy hot for us. In fact, we set several records. Now, we’ve settled into a cooler, more normal early summer pattern. My Peonies are having a weird year, and while they’re blooming voluptuously all around the area, mine are still buds! I think it’s because I didn’t lift the mulch early enough and then the tree leaves filled out too fast. During a “normal” year, the Peony season lasts a couple of weeks here. They’re such amazing cut flowers!
Thank goodness we have not gone over 30° yet! Yes, I suspect it was the mulch that slowed down your peonies… an interesting thought to prolong the season perhaps. Thanks Beth!
Wow, that is hot. I love your philadelphus arrangement and your yummy peonies.
Thanks Chloris. Philadelphus looks fantastic in a vase for a day and then droops, but the scent lasts nonetheless, so I have learned another lesson!
I love those white Campanulas. They don’t grow well for me. The Philadelphus is also wonderful. We have one but it’s not fragrant. What’s the point? I hope the weather cools for you!
I used to claim mine wasn’t fragrant. Have you tried cutting a piece for indoors… it might surprise you!