Congratulations go to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden today on the seventh anniversary of her wonderful Monday meme!
🥳🏆🌻
Each week gardeners scattered across the globe join her in putting materials from their gardens in various receptacles and sharing them. It is always a pleasure to have flowers indoors, but this week Cathy has challenged us to create a vase WITHOUT flowers!
Fortunately this is relatively easy for me at this time of year, as my grasses all look gorgeous right now. And there are seedheads still standing too.
I have several different Miscanthus now… above you can see Red Chief and Federweißer. Those small black seedheads are Rudbeckia fulgida from the Sunshine Bed.
Are these fireworks?!…
I saved some of my Allium seedheads earlier in the year, and they still have a slight pinkish tinge to them. Really sparkly in the sunshine.
Whereas this Allium below is completely grey, although I find it just as pretty. Next to it is an Echinacea seedhead. I have plenty of these dotted around and have only removed those that were toppling over.
Here is another one next to some bushy Pennisetum…
Another seedhead I love is this one… Queen Ann’s Lace. Like little stars.
And Scabiosa ochroleuca also has very pretty seedheads.
I also used a sprig of Hypericum for its berries, although they are rather dark. In front is some annual Briza, saved from last year.
I think I have four different Miscanthus in the vase, along with some Panicum, Eragrostis and an unnamed pinkish one which was also saved earlier in the year. All the names are recorded but I can’t recall all of them. I love grasses so much though that more will be added to the garden in the future.
It was fun putting this vase together. I haven’t added any water to it as these will all be dried and saved (except the Hypericum) for future winter fillers!
Many thanks to Cathy for keeping this lovely meme going for so long now. It has brought such joy over the years, and has often given me something to focus on in difficult times. (Especially this year!) I love sharing my vases and seeing other creations from fellow bloggers. Sometimes they are abundant, with masses of gorgeous blooms, sometimes minimal, introducing me to new plants, and always a lovely way to link up with gardeners near and far. 😃
Do visit Cathy today to see her celebratory vase.
And have a good week, especially if you are in a lockdown again like we are. Keep smiling and carry on gardening as long as the weather permits! 😃
Words and Herbs 
I have really enjoyed everyone’s creative vases made with not flowers. It is nice that you can use your materials again.
I have a few vases of dried grasses which are on constant display around the house. I just love grasses, even though I do have to be careful with my skin as they cause a slight allergic reaction!
Your grasses look so festive and celebratory. Nice use of the Hypericum too. It’s always fund to see what you have chosen for your Monday vases Cathy!
Thanks Susie. It’s fun to make a vase too as long as I give myself plenty of time! (I actually did this one on Saturday!)
What a glorious blue sky Cathy!! And what a great collection of grasses and seedheads you have included in your bloomless vase, and although this was the route I thought I would be going down it wouldn’t have been as sparkly as yours! I too have learned to love grasses in recent years although most are not established clumps yet
Grasses do so well here – long hot summers seem to suit a lot of them and the Stipa especially cope with any amount of heat and drought. 😃 The blue sky was actually on Saturday as I took advantage of it to get my vase done and photographed early. I knew the fog was going to come down and once it is here it stays a while…
Good to know that they can ontribute to a reliable backbone for your garden. Might the fog last for days?
A watery sun has just managed to get through this afternoon, but all along the Danube we often get fog that can hang around for weeks!
Is that because you are so far inland?
Partly I suppose, but also the area along the Danube river is renowned for autumn and winter fog. From the Alps up to Munich they get fall winds that blow the fog away, but these winds rarely have an effect as far north as we are. I think it is not quite as bad where we are now, but the old garden was on the slope of a narrow river valley just a few miles from the Danube and we had one year where we didn’t see the sun for three months!
Such a pretty cut-crystal vase and flower-free, waterless 😉 arrangement, Cathy. Grasses are so pretty this time of year and add much to the autumn garden. Love all the various seed heads, too. The birds have been picking at mine for months, nice to see.
‘Keep smiling and carry on gardening…’ Sage advice! 🙂
😉 Our birds seem to find plenty of grubs and insects in my beds, but I haven’t seen any on the seedheads yet.
Well done Cathy! It is an arrangement and study in textures. I love it! It would have been fun to try this challenge, but I haven’t really been blogging or paying much attention to other blogs, or really anything on social media. Just needed a break from all the nastiness regarding the elections. Now that they are over, I hope people will return to some semblance of kindness and thrusting their unwanted opinions on others. Your arrangement was a lovely reprieve and I love the creativity you have shared with us!
Hi Cindy. I know how you feel and have been avoiding news recently too. It is all fake anyway,! LOL! I hope your garden still has something in it to offer some comfort, even if it doesn’t make it into a vase. 😉🤗
That is beautiful! Gosh, I love this challenge and I regret that I didn’t join in this time. It’s been a pleasure to see the creativity with this week’s vases, and yours is incredible. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Beth. I have been impressed and inspired by the other vases this week too. 😃
I love grasses and your lovely arrangement shows how versatile they are.
I expect I will eventually remember which ones are which, but I am still a novice really only having discovered the beauty of grasses a few years ago. 😉
Who needs flowers Cathy? Some shimmering grasses there and the allium heads are splendid. That perfect blue sky makes a great backdrop for your photo 😄
Thanks Anna. Big sigh – that blue sky has sadly vanished beneath our November fog!
Cathy what a magnificent vase of grasses and seeds, I love it. The Miscanthus is divine. I like the seeds of echinacea and rudbeckia very much as well as those of allium. I love all the grasses and all the seeds. You don’t need flowers to make a wonderful vase like this: it is very special! I’m sorry you are homebound, but you have a wonderful garden to walk around, enjoy, and garden in. Happy week. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita.
Thank you Margarita. Yes, I am very lucky to have a garden with plenty of space. I feel sorry for people confined to flats in the cities. I know you have a balcony, but I believe no garden, so I hope you are able to take exercise somewhere. All the best. xx
Cathy thank you very much for your kind words. I don’t have a garden but my terrace is large and my sister has given me many Chlorophytum comosum, a Spathiphyllum, a Saintpaulia and a Chamaedorea elegans: I have my little indoor garden, although the Chlorophytum comosum are on the terrace because it is closed in aluminum and glass which then opens whole. With these plants I amuse myself and I see green. When I go to the country house, I do not know if this next Summer I will be able to go, I will take them all in the back seat of the car inside some cardboard boxes held by the seat belts. Take good care of yourselves and enjoy your wonderful garden. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita 😀🌲🌼
I love the way you have set up your vase with the wonderful blue skies behind. The grasses and seedheads are a perfect match for your celebration of this meme. You have some splendid plants in your garden, and seeing what you select and how you arrange them, is a lovely start to the week.
Thank you for your lovely comment Noelle. 😃 Cathy’s meme has kept me going at times in the past when I thought I might stop blogging altogether, and comments like yours are always a big boost too. Thanks! 🤗
Love the grasses, the mixture looks like fireworks. Happy Anniversary!!
Yes, the alliums add some sparkle! 😉 Thanks Amy.
That’s wonderful, especially against that crystal blue sky (and what a superb vase). I love that allium head with the pink dried petals. It brings out all the pinks and purples in the grasses. Well done!
Thank you! I am glad I could salvage a couple of those allium heads early summer before they got blown away!
I have admired your grasses for a long time now, Cathy. In fact, I think it’s really due to your photos that I added some to my garden a few years back, and I know for a fact that it is due to how you’ve incorporated them into your vases that I have now done the same! I never did that before. So see? You’ve been very inspirational! 🙂
Ahhh, that is so nice Debra. I think a garden needs grasses to make the flowers stand out better and they are so underrated. 😃
I love the grasses, Cathy, and the fact that you show another great ornamental grass in the background.
Thank you Kris. Grasses are absolutely essential for me in my garden, so using them in a vase is naturally the next step. 😃
Pretty cool! It ‘almost’ reminds me of those big vases full of pampas grass flowers when I was a kid. They were not so refined though.
I am glad you say ‘almost’! Pampas grass never looks right in a garden here and is something I would never grow! 😉
It was an incredibly invasive weed where I lived for part of the time when I was a kid. In a way, I really dislike it. However, if I lived in town, I would consider growing a ‘sterile’ type in the right situation.