In a Vase on Monday: Snip Snip!

Monday again, and time to make up a vase to share. 😃

I didn’t have a plan this week, but started off in the Herb Bed (in the background here), as there is so much lovely growth there and it is doing so well now. It has reached the stage where I have seedlings every year and can divide or move things.

The Fennel is such a great plant: it loves heat and drought, and remained standing until we had snow. The birds loved sitting in it in winter before it collapsed. And in spring and summer the foliage is wonderful in vases. I added a white and a blue borage and some chives, just about to flower. Then I snipped a sprig of tarragon (apparently an ingredient in the ‘Coronation Quiche’😉) and some wild strawberry flowers.

Then I moved over to the other beds and just continued snipping! A bit of this and a bit of that.

With a purple Pulsatilla at the centre of it all. 😃

This is what I wait for all year – enough flowers to snip for little vases throughout the week, and not just Mondays! 😃

The Spirea arguta is a cloud of white in the Moon Bed, and the white broom is also just opening. A pulsatilla seedhead, some of the golden Spirea, some Pulmonaria, and a pink Scabiosa got picked and I realised this tiny row of joined vases would be ideal. Other snippets were some Geranium phaeum, Euphorbia polychroma, Heuchera leaves and flower spike, and some Nepeta.

Why don’t you also join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden and have some fun picking (or snippety snipping) something from your garden for a vase to share this Monday!

In any case, happy gardening and have a great week!

 

 

 

In a Vase on Monday: ‘Royal Bumble’

You may be wondering what on earth the title of this week’s vase means! Well, it is the name of the red Salvia I have used: Salvia greggii ‘Royal Bumble’.

 

The Peony foliage was actually what I started off with. It has already started to turn this lovely pinky orange colour. The grass is Calamagrostis brachytricha, also with a reddish pink tinge.

 

I then added a few stems of Hypericum ‘Miracle Night’, and several stems of this deep scarlet Salvia, grown from my own cuttings last year.

 

The whole vase was then photgraphed on one of the stepping stones in the Herb Bed, surrounded by some of the other salvias I have grown this year.

This was the part of the Herb Bed I enlarged in the Spring. Now that we have had lots of rain it is slowly filling up with stipa, sage and borretsch seedlings. And the Parsley has done well there too! 😃

Thanks as always to Cathy at Rambling in Garden, who asks us to join her each week with a vase of materials from our gardens.

Have a good week, and happy gardening!

🐝

In a Vase on Monday: From the Edge of the Meadow

There are areas in the garden that don’t get mown, including up against the fence….

Or this lovely slope next to the garage…

But the idea of flattening this ‘meadow’ if I walk through has put me off picking any flowers…. until now, as there are some Queen Ann’s Lace flowers and some moon daisies open near the edges! So on a perfect summer’s day (Sunday) I selected a mix of what I could reach, and a few other things from the edges of the garden. 😃

Some of the flowers are: Moon daisies, Fleabane, Harebells, Red and Yellow Clovers, St John’s Wort, Knapweed, Yarrow, Bedstraw and Bugle.

 

I love finding a bit of pink yarrow, which occasionally turns up amongst the white…

The St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is actually from my Herb Bed, but we do have some flowering around the garden too. I hope to find enough to pick and dry for tea in winter. 😃

Is anything growing wild in your gardens this week? 😉

I am participating in ‘In a Vase on Monday’, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Why not visit her blog to see other vases from far and wide… 😃

Happy gardening!

In a Vase on Monday: Silvery Sage

I have been getting to know more and more varieties of Salvia over the past couple of years, and one I am completely in love with at the moment is the Salvia sclarea, or Clary Sage. I sowed some seed and planted out a few small plants into the Herb Bed last spring, having no idea how big these plants become!

 

 I also had no idea how lovely they are. So one has been cut for the centre piece of my vase this week.

What better companions for it than some of my other sages. The strong purple in front is Salvia viridis, also sown and planted out last spring with little idea of what it will look like. 😃

The white salvia is growing in the Moon Bed: Salvia nemorosa ‘Schneehügel’. This one has the slightly bitter smell that I don’t like much. The culinary sages smell wonderful though and I added a pink and lilac one to the vase.

And then finally I added two sprigs of my ornamental salvias ‘Nachtvlinder’ and ‘Aromax Blue’. Hard to see on the photos, but they will no doubt feature again here soon!

Do you grow salvias? Which are your favourites?

I am linking to Cathy’s Monday meme inviting us to share a vase of flowers etc from our gardens. Do visit her at Rambling in the Garden to see her lovely British vase today as well as to see who else is picking and plonking/elegantly arranging flowers this week!

Happy gardening!

Salvia sclarea

Wordless Wednesday: Icing Sugar

Salvia greggii ‘Icing Sugar’

In a Vase on Monday: Mostly Herbs

I have been harvesting some herbs recently. Last week it was parsley, sage and chives; the parsley and sage are cut into small pieces and dried in our food dehydrator until dry enough to crumble, and the chives are snipped and simply frozen in tiny containers, ready to sprinkle over/in hot food. I also made some parsley and garlic paste (that was strong!) and some parsley ice cubes.

But today the mint was due to be picked and, as always, I got distracted and started picking things for a Monday vase!

The photos are taken on the steps next to my Herb Bed, which is also ‘mostly herbs’. There is a Viburnum in the middle, a few antirrhinums, a Geum, a Euphorbia and some spring bulbs. But I think everything else could be classified as a herb or medicinal plant (German has one word for this: Heilkräuter).

The first Hypericum flower of the season on my dark-leafed Hypericum shrub was the prompt for my vase, as this shrub looks so pretty growing near the Antirrhinums and I had already decided I wanted to use a couple of those today.  Some blue borage set them off nicely.

The pink sage flowers also look nice with the dark foliage. I have several sages, including some ornamental ones. To my surprise, a couple overwintered from last year, including this purple one: Nachtvlinder.

Other green foliage is mint(!), lemon balm and more Hypericum. Somewhere at the back there is even a sprig of parsley! 😉

I am now going to chop up all this mint for the dehydrator and will remember this warm sunny June day while sipping some mint tea on a winter’s day. 😃

Thanks to Cathy from Rambling in the Garden for keeping this idea alive every week, where we share things plucked from our gardens or neighbourhoods and show them off in a vase of some sort.

Have a lovely Monday and a great week.

Happy gardening!

In a Vase on Monday: Totally Tangerine!

I am totally in love with Totally Tangerine!

I had been looking for this Geum for years, seeing it regularly (with growing envy! 😉) on other blogs. It seemed unknown in Germany. But the choice of plants here slowly improves each year, and more and more nurseries in the north of Germany have websites and online shops. A couple of weeks ago I finally tracked one down… well, actually I ordered three!

I was so surprised that they arrived in flower too. 😃

Naturally, one had to appear in my vase this week, as I join our host Cathy, at Rambling in the Garden, for this weekly meme.

The tulip is Ballerina, which can hardly be beaten for a splash of red/orange in May. The seedheads are Pulsatilla, and the foliage is Heuchera and Alchemilla.

I had to rinse the pollen off the Heuchera leaves, as everything is coated in a thick layer thick of it. Can you see it on the Pulsatilla?

It is not so much the oilseed rape at the moment, but the evergreens… in this photo below the oilseed rape is a pretty picture, but can you see the clouds of pollen in front of the dark evergreens? (Click on the photo to enlarge)

(Anouk has yellow legs most of the time! 😉)

I love the fiery colours of Geums and they have done well for me in the past, so I have sown seed of Fireball and Red Dragon this spring. They are coming along well. I also have a few other Geums in the garden; Blazing Sunset (grown from seed several years ago), Gold Ball, Mai Tai, Scarlet Tempest and Red Wings. Do you grow any?

May is such a busy month, but I will try and take time to enjoy the garden today instead of just rushing around weeding, sowing, shuffling seedlings around, etc.

Hope you have time to enjoy your gardens this week too. Happy Gardening!