In a Vase on Monday: Anastasia

This is Anastasia, my pretty little pink Chrysanthemum.

She is the last flower to bloom in my autumn garden, after all the asters have gone over and the sedum has faded. Admittedly, she is a bit of a sugary shade of pink. And pink is not in keeping with the season. But she is loved nonetheless!

Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so I picked quite a few sprigs and gave her a vase all to herself, so she has the limelight indoors as well as out. I placed a few matching straw flowers around the vase for even more pink. Can a girl have too much pink? 😃

I am linking in to Cathy’s weekly meme at Rambling in Garden. Do go and visit her to see what she and other gardeners are sharing in their vases today.

Happy gardening and have a great week!

 

Six on Saturday: That Spooky Time of Year

My garden has some perfect ingredients for a Halloween party this week, so I thought I would share some and join Jim at ‘Garden Ruminations‘ and the Six on Saturday crowd. Thank you for hosting this weekly meme, Jim.

First off the witch’s cauldron!

This giant black pot stands in the corner of the yard and although the bamboo still looks good, the annual geraniums planted at the base are looking gruesome and grizzly since our frosts. Definitely time to pull them out.

The witch’s least favourite plant is probably the Witch Hazel, as it has such healing powers. This Hamamelis ‘Diane’ is clothed in her lovely autumn cloak.

The (witch’s?) Broom (Cytisus ‘Allgold’, I think) is trying to flower… a mystery, as it usually flowers in the late spring/early summer!

After debating whether to cut down these rather ugly seedheads of Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Diana’, I am glad I didn’t. They are standing firm after some frosts and rain, so will be allowed to remain through the winter. I think they look a bit like witch’s fingers, don’t you? 😉

There was some spooky light around these ghostly white Miscanthus seedheads. (Or maybe there was a touch of enhancing the original photo…)😜

Finally, there seems to be a lot of blood red in the garden right now… the work of witches?

(Click on any photo for slideshow)

Liquidambar

Gaillardia

Hollyhock

The Flames of Hell? No, so-called ‘Blutgras’. Imperata ‘Red Baron’

Although Halloween isn’t really celebrated here in Germany, we do have All Saints Day as a bank holiday. 😃 Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, have a great week, and do visit Jim and some of the other Six on Saturday contributions linked to his post.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Euonymus europaeus

Our native spindle tree, Euonymus europaeus, complete with dewdrops and spider’s webs on a foggy October morning

In a Vase on Monday: Phenomenal Pholiage

The autumn colours are gorgeous this year and our hedgerows are ablaze with Euonymus, Viburnum and Virginia Creeper. But I decided to use some of the (what I consider) lesser known shrubs in my garden and containers for an autumn vase, as I join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly meme.

My new favourite vase contains some Itea virginica ‘Little Henry’ (back right), Leucothoe ‘Little Flames’ (front left),  Spiraea japonica ‘Magic Carpet’ (front right), and the large red leaves on the left are Diervilla splendens ‘Diva’, which is a shrub I can recommend… very drought proof, beautiful foliage and pretty little yellow flowers in early summer.

The Itea and Leucothoe are quite happy in pots in the yard, even in the extreme heat of summer and freezing winters, although I did wrap the Leucothoe up well last winter. I did, however, have to plant out the Spiraea as it didn’t like being confined. The Diervilla is planted in The ‘Edge and is still relatively small, resembling a Weigela in its growth but with much prettier glossy leaves and remaining very compact. (Up to about 1.5 m tall).

At the centre of the arrangement is a fennel flower, for some sparkle and some onomatopoeia – Phenomenal pholiage and phennel! 😉

I didn’t stop there though, as I noticed that despite three nights of frost my Gaillardia ‘Burgunder’ was still flowering. It got a matching autumnal vase with some yellow Tansy and Chrysopsis at the back (barely visible in my photos I realize!) and the lovely Chrysanthemum that featured last week at the front – Chrysanthemum indica ‘Bienchen’ (which means ‘little bee’).🐝

That Gaillardia deserves a medal for its flower power, but some golden leaves will have to do. I just looked back at some of my posts last year and noted that it was just as tough and long flowering in our drought year.

I wonder if you have pretty autumn foliage yet as well?

Many thanks to Cathy for hosting. Have a great week everyone!

(Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday: The First Frost, October 2023

As I mentioned on my post a couple of days ago, we had our first frost Sunday night/Monday morning and it was quite a beautiful sight. The low cloud and mist meant that the white frost hung around, clinging to the garden, for a few hours until the sun finally broke through at about 11am. So I managed to capture some of its beauty to share. Click on any photo for a  slideshow!

 

 

In a Vase on Monday: Saving Sunflowers and Salvias

Our long Indian summer has finally come to an end, but it was wonderful while it lasted! With temperatures reaching 24°C on Friday, the rapid drop to just 10°C on Sunday was quite a shock. And last night we had our first frost. Fortunately it had been forecast, so I was able to save some flowers for a Monday vase. 😃 And it did look pretty this morning…

The first on my list of flowers to save were some of the less hardy Salvias.

Even in a dry spot with mulch, most of these will not come through the winter. I had debated digging some out, but where would I put the pots? And I have no luck with cuttings and didn’t even try them this year. So I decided to cut the flowers and enjoy them indoors for a few days instead.

This yellow one is Salvia greggii ‘Golden Girl’. It only started flowering about a week ago and it was also a lot paler than I had expected. Pretty, but not one I would bother with again.

The next one (a little blurry I’m afraid) is one I have grown before: Salvia greggii ‘Icing Sugar’. It certainly is a sugary pink.

This blue one is S. greggii ‘Aromax Blue’ which has actually lasted two winters here.

And the lovely dark peachy red one in that photo is a Salvia greggii too, with the imaginative name ‘Peach’. 😉

But my favourite of all is this gorgeous peachy yellow one – S. x jamensis ‘Sierra San Antonio’. Out of all of them, this one is worth trying to save.

I may dig this out and try keeping it in a pot after all. Here it is this morning, relatively unscathed…

Anyway, I also wanted to use this lovely sunflower jug that has found its way into my growing collection.

I had my eye on a gorgeous Chrysanthemum that finally flowered this year.

Then I added the last annual sunflowers, which are all very small, and some perennial sunflowers too – the small pale yellow flowers of Helianthus giganteus ‘Sheila’s Sunshine’. They don’t open until October, so bring some late flair to the Sunshine Bed. They are, however, not as drought-proof as I had hoped, not flowering at all last year.

Another flower I used is a red Gaillardia ‘Burgunder’ which is simply amazing and just goes on and on producing flowers all summer, whatever the weather.

There is also a Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia) in there, Chrysopsis ‘Sunnyshine’, a sprig of Tansy, some golden Peony and Thalictrum foliage and, of course, some autumn grasses: Pennisetum, Calamagrostis, Miscanthus ‘Red Chief’ and some Panicum.

Thanks go to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting.

(And thanks to My Man of Many Talents for the new jug too! 😘)

Have a great gardening week!

 

In a Vase on Monday: Flamingos, Stars, Asteroids and the Cosmos

Each week Cathy at Rambling in the Garden posts a vase containing flowers and foliage from her garden, and invites everyone to join her. This week I actually have several vases, and I know my title will be intriguing!

There, now you can see what I mean: the pink Gypsophila ‘Flamingo’, some Asters (including A. ‘Pink Star‘), Japanese Anemones (Honorine Jobert), a pink Cosmos, various grasses, Verbena bonariensis, Persicaria Orangefield and Boltonia asteroides ‘Snowbank’ (named ‘Sternwolkenaster’ by Karl Foerster – Star Cloud Aster).

The ‘fabulous birthday’ card from my parents seemed a suitable prop…

… yes, I celebrated my birthday at the weekend and made sure I had plenty of flowers in the house for it. I put these vases together on another mild and pleasant October afternoon, albeit with a definite hint of autumn in the air now.

The Asters are mostly still looking good, although ‘Mönch’ is now over (it flowered for weeks!) and a couple are looking a bit weedy due to the lack of rain. (But today we have finally had some light rain for a couple of hours). This blue one in the vase below is Aster dumosus ‘Blauer Gletscher’. It’s really popular wih the bees.

The larger purply blue one in the centre is Barr’s Blue, and the gorgeous tiny white one in there is A. ericoides ‘Schneetanne’…

Schneetanne is early this year, usually being the last one to flower at the end of October. The pink ones are my favourite, ‘Pink Star’, which has now spread all around the garden!

Pink Star varies in height in all the different spots it now grows, from just 30 cm to over a metre, so I assume that depends on how much moisture is in the ground. In the next vase the deep pink Aster is Alma Poetschke…

It is lovely to have so many asters and other flowers still, after such a long sunny spell, and I am making the most of them, as you can see. 😉

Hope you all have flowers to make you smile this week too. Happy gardening!