Tag Archives: Autumn

A Week of Flowers 2023, Day Seven

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What a fabulous week this has been! A huge thank you to all of you who have joined in and all the  lovely comments too! 💕 I started this annual ‘Week of Flowers‘ at the end of November 2020, to cheer me up after the loss of my dear little dog, Gina. It seemed a good idea to repeat it in 2021, with so many social restrictions still in place, and it has since become an annual event that I plan and look forward to as soon as the autumn garden starts winding down.

So, the final day has come round – all good things must come to an end – and I will start off with the brightest photo I could find…

Papaver orientalis

Then we have a mix of flowers I love, from all seasons. Click any photo for a slideshow.

Aster ‘Lutetia’ ?
Tulipa humilis ‘Little Beauty’
Geranium ‘Rozanne’
Nigella
Scabiosa ‘Perfecta’
Digitalis purpurea
Hemerocallis ‘Hexenritt’
Echinacea pallida
Geranium, Nigella and Veronica
Verbena bonariensis with Queen of Spain Fritillary
Aster ‘Mönch’ and Cosmos

Looking back through all my photos of 2023 makes me realize how much the garden has progressed over the past couple of years. And it has also got me thinking about new projects and what is to come next spring, summer, autumn…. Isn’t it magical that our gardens go on, regardless of what is happening in the world?  Gardening gives us a firm footing, hope and the chance to dream.

Thank you once again to all who have participated and made this year’s Week of Flowers such a success!

💕🤗💕

A Week of Flowers 2023, Day Three

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Welcome back to A Week of Flowers! December can be such a dreary month in the northern hemisphere, so I am brightening up at least the first week of it with my annual meme. Please do join me! Just post a flower or two, each day, through to December 7th, and leave a link in the comments below. 😃

Some more subtle colours today, day three, from various times of the year: some moody blues and some white. Some people say white is not a colour, but I disagree. It can have just as much impact in a flower bed as any other colour. What do you think?

Click on any image for a slideshow with the names of the plants.

Aster ericoides ‘Schneetanne’
Boltonia asteroides ‘Snowbank’
Violas and Iberis sempervivens ‘Schneeflocke’
Camassia
Aquilegia
Iris sibirica

Hope you are enjoying this as much as I am! Many thanks to those joining in – do check the links in the comments to all their posts. And my Mum says a heartfelt thank you to all of the kind get well wishes yesterday. It really did her good! 🤗

Have a great day, and see you tomorrow?

❣️

In a Vase on Monday: Falda

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My lovely friend Simone visited me last week and gave me a pretty miniature vase from the Rosenthal mini vase collection. There was a little leaflet inside the box, which read ‘You can never have enough vases’; she chose the gift well!

After some heavy rain I wasn’t sure what I would be able to find to put in it so I could join in with Cathy’s Monday meme. (See Cathy’s blog ‘Rambling in the Garden’) But I needn’t have worried as there is plenty of pretty foliage still, and the Herb Bed also had a few things to offer.

This vase is called Falda – from the Spanish for skirt. And, as you can see in the photo above, the top of the vase does indeed have a pleated frill at the top, like a pleated skirt, which is perfect for resting foliage on to form a kind of base to a floral arrangement. 😃

I used a deep purple Heuchera leaf, some reddening Geum leaves and a green Geranium leaf at the base. The flowers are Tansy and Fennel. And a sprig of dark green mint freshened up the whole thing.

Some Pennisetum and another grass (Panicum?) went in too. I do love all my different grasses, but can’t always remember their names! 😉

I love picking fennel seeds off the Fennel plant to nibble at when I am in the garden – they remind me of the aniseed balls we used to have when I was little! The plant is almost two metres tall and will probably topple over soon, as it has grown very lopsided this year and the sparrows and Great Tits love hopping around in it too. 😃

I wonder what is still flowering in your gardens?

Have a great week, and Happy Gardening!

 

In a Vase on Monday: Ten Green Bottles…..

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Today we are celebrating ten years of In a Vase on Monday!

😁

Cathy at Rambling in the Garden is the host of this lovely weekly meme, and when she invited fellow bloggers to join her in sharing a weekly vase one November day back in 2013, she probably did not suspect how much pleasure it would give to so many over the years. It has made me look at Mondays, and my garden, in a different way. Some post a vase regularly, some only now and then, but Cathy has been the unwavering stalwart not missing a single week. Friendships have evolved and we all look forward to sharing, commenting and being part of this little community. A big warm thank you to Cathy!

To mark this anniversary we have been given a challenge – to NOT use a vase! So I am combining the number ten with my green bottles (some hastily retrieved from the recycling bin!) which may resemble vases but are definitely all bottles since they all had a lid, cork or seal of some kind. 😉 In case you are not familiar with the children’s song, here is a link:

Ten Green Bottles

Ten Green Bottles

Lacking a wall to stand them on, they are standing on the stove instead. From left to right: Scabiosa ochroleuca and Scabiosa columbaria ‘Pink Mist’, an Echinacea seedhead, a dried sprig of grass found in the meadow (possibly flattened by tractor wheels? 😆)…

… the pink Chrysanthemum ‘Anastasia’ featured two weeks ago, some Tansy, and some Miscanthus ‘Red Chief’ at the front…

Siberian Iris seedpods, a burnt orange sprig of Spiraea, an old arrangement of various dried flowers and seedheads from last winter, and the last half decent blooms of my golden Chrysanthemum ‘Bienchen’.

There is very little flowering now as we have had quite a lot of rain and temperatures are in single digits with the occasional frost thrown in. But looking at this little collection makes me incredibly grateful for what my garden gives me – even in November – and grateful for being able to share it too. Without these Monday vases, my blog would be like the garden in winter and simply whither away! But Cathy and the other participants are always an inspiration to me to make an effort and find something to bring indoors each week. 🤗

Congratulations to Cathy on keeping this meme alive so long! I look forward to another year of vases from all over the world! 😁

In a Vase on Monday: Rusty

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Despite a frost in October, a couple of mauve Mallow flowers have survived, tucked up behind grasses or other plants. I can’t remember their name, but I grew them from seed and was very unimpressed with them all summer…. until now. A couple of weeks ago they started to fill out with fresh leaves and buds. Yes, they do have rust, but never mind! I put them in a rust coloured (but shiny) ikebana vase as a tenuous link! 😉

I found a couple of other single pink flowers to complement the pinky mauve Mallow… a Scabiosa ‘Pink Mist’ and a Salvia viridis ‘Pink Sundae’. The Scabiosa often produce a single flower here and there in winter, but the plants really need cutting back as they get mildew.

The foliage is from two different Physocarpus shrubs, one of which still has some rather attractive seedheads attached. Their leaves are dropping rapidly, so I caught them just in time.

While writing this, the sun has started shining and when low in the sky at this time of year it streams through the windows and lights up the sideboard where my vase stands…

Many thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for encouraging us to join her each week and share materials from out gardens in a vase. She has a challenge for us all next week too, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of ‘In a Vase on Monday’. So do visit her to see her vase today and find out more.

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In a Vase on Monday: Anastasia

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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!