Tag Archives: Nature

In a Vase on Monday: Celebrating Six Years of Vases!

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Congratulations to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden on the sixth anniversary of her wonderful meme! And a pat on the back for all those who have been taking part and creating lovely arrangements throughout the seasons. 🙂

This week we have been set an anniversary challenge: to present an arrangement only 6 inches (15 cm) square/high.

I immediately chose my miniature crystal rose bowl as a vase and went out on Sunday afternoon in the bitter cold to see what was still standing after several nights of frost.

My now favourite Achillea – ‘Pomegranate’ – is still looking wonderful, so I snipped a tiny bit off and found some of its common cousin growing wild which I also added. Then I found a little Fleabane, tinged with pink. And that was all I needed for a pretty little display.

Of course, I couldn’t stop at just one tiny vase, and as I had already selected some of my favourite miniature containers as alternatives I filled them too…

I particularly like the fireworks effect of the fennel with the pennisetum. Just right for a celebratory vase!

This meme has changed the way I garden – I soon recognized how rewarding it is to be able to bring flowers indoors almost all year round, as well as enjoying them outside. And my planting choices were therefore influenced.

So a very big thanks to Cathy for the inspiration and for keeping this meme going with her encouragement and thoughtful comments on our vases weekly. So much dedication is remarkable. 😃

 

 

In a Vase on Monday: Silvery Charm

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Rain!

Yes, we have had two more entire days of good rain and everything is turning green again. With heavenly temperatures below 20°C and a damp garden under cloudy skies the silvery plants in the butterfly and herb beds sparkled and I decided to use them for a vase so I could join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her Monday meme.

The glare of the sun has been a problem with photography recently, but today it was hard to find a light spot!

At the centre of my vase is white Echinacea Baby Swan, which was planted in the herb bed last autumn. It is a novelty not to have young plants nibbled by slugs and snails – Echinaceas were impossible to grow in my old garden! The blue Scabiosa was grown from seed: Scabiosa caucasica ‘Perfection Blue’. It has such a lovely large flower compared with the annual ones. Other flowers are white Cosmos (possibly ‘Purity’), Coriander, Borage, Perovskia and a sprig of Buddleia ‘Pink Delight’, which has indeed been delightful. The silvery foliage is Artemisia ‘Silver Queen’ and Senecio (with the yellow flowers chopped off!)

And to complete the silver theme I added a prop this week – my silver charm bracelet which has probably not been worn for over a decade, maybe two. But each charm was a gift and has happy memories attached. 🙂

I resorted to taking photos indoors with flash to get a picture of the entire vase…

 

As always, a big thanks to Cathy for hosting and encouraging us all to bring flowers indoors to enjoy close up – particularly uplifting on a wet day. I must admit we have been relishing this weather though and are not complaining!

Have a great week and hope you get the weather you and your gardens wish for.

🙂

Some Tuesday Views

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Monday was a bank holiday here (Whit Monday) and I paid my old garden a visit. So strictly speaking this is a Monday View on a Tuesday!

Anyway, for long-term readers of my blog you may recognize the Tuesday Views I used to show over the past few years….

First the south side of The Rockery…

The Centranthus is perhaps the main highlight, and as always is attracting the Hummingbird Hawk-Moths…

If you can grow it, do! The pollinators adore it and if it pops up in the wrong place it can easily be pulled up – provided you don’t wait too long and it gets established. One year I pulled out so much I was worried it wouldn’t come back. But within two years it was as rampant as ever!

The yellow Lysimachia seems to be taking over again on the south-west side of the rockery, but rough treatment seems to keep it in check. Note: if you want to plant Lysimachia it can be grown in a very hot dry spot without spreading too much. Otherwise, my advice is to avoid it!

The poppies are fabulous. And I now have three pink ones after fearing I had lost them all. (Most of them are orangey red). I must mark which ones are pink and leave the seed heads to ripen so I can collect seed to sow in the late summer. The pink aquilegia in the photo below is my favourite ever – when I bought it it was helpfully labelled ‘Aquilegia’. 😉

The peonies have suffered for the second year in a row from a hot and dry spring and have produced plenty of buds, but many are dried up and will not open. Still, there are more than enough to add white and pink highlights here and there.

Looking up the south-west slope you can see the Acer (which caught a late frost mid-May and sent out new leaves!) and the gorgeous lime green Euphorbia seguieriana.

I have planted some rather small ones in the new garden and it was good to see how this plant has grown so big in just a few years.

I was a few days too late to see my long-awaited yellow ‘Shining Light’ Itoh Peony flower… plans to visit last week were foiled by car trouble! Never mind. It will be carefully removed in autumn and given a prime position in the new garden. 🙂

The Shade Bed on the north side of the house has filled out beautifully – a lot of Geraniums have self-seeded and the Hakonechloa loves it there. In June and July part of the bed gets midday sun for a couple of hours and late evening sun too, but for the rest of the year it is humid and shady here.

The Hosta leaves are still intact! Sadly the slugs will soon start to discover them and the flowers usually get blackfly too due to the humidity. (The woods are just a few metres away).

Well, I have just realized it is now past midnight so it was a Tuesday View post, photographed on Monday and published on Wednesday! Still, hope you enjoyed it whatever day it was!

Have a lovely week!