Welcome to this weeks In A Vase On Monday when I am linking up with Cathy at Rambling In The Garden to produce a vase (or this week a bottle) of flowers from my garden.
As I hinted yesterday I have found it very difficult to choose what to put in my vase today. My heart is still with the snowdrops and hellebores – their season feels all too short. All around me, however, other beauties are bursting into flower and tempting me away into spring.
For this week, after much deliberation, I have finally opted to go with spring. My first camellia flowers are just opening and my favourite spring anemones have made their beautiful appearance. Spring is rapidly taking over my winter garden whether I am ready or not!
The first bottle in this trio is filled with the beautiful blue anemone Mr Fokker, bought from the Sarah Raven catalogue and planted in autumn 2012. This clump flowered beautifully last year and the early flowers this year bode well for another good season. Once planted anemones are a very easy spring flower. Their fresh green leaves start growing in the autumn and provide greenery throughout the winter. Once they start to flower regular deadheading should result in them continuing to produce until the warmer weather sends them retreating underground for the summer.
I like to pick anemones before the flower is fully open. They are quite delicate and soon look tatty if left on the plant too long. Picked in bud they will open indoors in a day or two and reveal their full beauty. The anemones here were picked this morning in full flower, but the flowers are so fresh I think they will last for a few days yet.
My second bottle contains a very beautiful camellia that I could not resist picking. This pale pink double looks very much like a peony or a rose and is far more beautiful in real life than in the image I have captured.
This camellia is called Debbie and is new to me this spring. I have a collection of camellias that I grow in pots against a shaded wall at the front of the house. Camellias really thrive in acid soil which we do not have in the garden, so large pots filled with ericaceous compost have provided the answer. Growing against the house wall they are protected from the worst of the winter weather. I keep them well watered and feed them twice a year and they seem very happy. Debbie is currently by the back door, but she will be moved to a larger pot against the front wall as soon as she has stopped flowering.
This beautiful anemone is called Sylphide and is another Sarah Raven purchase. At a time when yellow seems to rule the world it is lovely to see these stunning pink flowers in the spring border.
I grow most of my spring bulbs and hellebores together in a border that leads down to the Woodland Walk. The Spring Garden seems as good a name as any for this border. The season starts with Helleborus Niger (the Christmas Rose) and the white flowered sarcococca (Christmas Box). In January the snowdrops and iris reticulata join in the show, followed by crocus, the first narcissi Tete a Tete, muscari and the anemones. Still to come are the white flowered narcissi Thalia and a selection of shrubs including the cascading spirea Arguta, viburnum opulus roseum (the snowball tree), the fabulously scented viburnum carlcephalum and viburnum bodnantense Dawn. The border also includes a young laburnum tree, a flowering cherry, a prunus serrula and a lilac tree.
I am very happy with my little bottles in their final position on the bathroom windowsill.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for some spring like weather later this week and I will be working hard to catch up with jobs that I am behind on following my winter bug. I hope to be back mid week with Garden Jobs to Do This Week – a post I have had to miss for the last two weeks as I have not been doing many jobs!
Please do pop over to Cathy’s blog to see what she and the others have made this week.
I am pleased to see your anemones and even more pleased to hear how well they have settled in your garden. Christina has featured Sylphide in her vase today and several times recently on her blog – see http://myhesperidesgarden.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/a-vase-on-the-first-monday-in-march/
I am hoping the ones I have just planted do as well as yours – and as for that camellia…. she is gorgeous! Thanks for continuing to contribute – it is lovely to be able to bounce ideas around like this
Thank you Cathy – I agree that bouncing ideas like this is a great bonus to blogging! I have just taken delivery of another batch of anemones as I would like to have a few more clumps in the spring border. I am also trying to get the smaller anemone nemorosa to establish in the shady woodland, but as with the Lily of the Valley I am struggling.
Now my day is filled with love~~Those gorgeous anemones and camellia are grown with so much care and dedication. Earlier I had tried camellia twice in tropical climate and killed them. As for anemones I have known only for the past few months.Lots to learn from you Julie.
Thank you Sajina for your kind comment. It is interesting that you had no success with camellias in India – perhaps they did not like the soil. You should try growing one in a pot of ericaceous compost – if you can shelter it from the worst of the Canadian winter you should have the flowers to look forward to next spring.
Beautifully photographed, I loved seeing the richness of your anemones and camellia today. This post is very helpful as I am trying to establish anemone in my little garden and planted Mr Fokker for its deep blue color. It didn’t survive so must try again.
Thank you Susie – I hope you have better luck next time. The ones I have were planted in autumn 2012 into soil enriched with leaf mould. I think I soaked the corms before planting them, but am not sure about that. I have another batch to plant that arrived this week – it will be interesting to see if they are as successful from a spring planting.
You said a couple of things that surprised me about the Anemone. 1. that it looks tacky after it has been open for a while in the garden, mine just fade beautifully and are there for several weeks adding their intense fading to more delicate colour. 2. That they only last a few days in a vase, this I will have to check with my present vase as I picked for the first time this season, but if memory serves me well they are one flower that can last weeks in a vase if picked in bud. I really like the way you have presented your blooms in bottles with the individual colours separate.
Thank you Christina – it is really interesting to see how the same plant can behave differently in different environments. I wondered if I was being a bit unfair to my anemones and went to have a look at them again today. I think something eats the petals on mine as the fading flowers do look very tatty – particularly the white ones. I agree that the colour is nice but my petals look very munched. Regarding the vase life I think I was misleading. I was trying to say that they have the best vase life if you pick them in bud but that even when picked in full flower like yesterday they will do quite well. As vase life is quite important ( although not essential) to cut flowers I think I will add a few lines to my Monday posts about how the previous weeks vase lasted.
That’s a brilliant idea, I’ll try to do the same. I have such a lot to learn about cut flowers and personal recommendations will really help.
BTW my corms came from Peter Nyssen and were very cheap but have performed brilliantly.
Thank you Christina – I have heard of Peter Nyssen but never used them – I will have a look at their website.
Most things are excellent quality, tulips, muscari, crocus, the anemones, I’ve had more mixed success with the alliums but that could be my ground rather than the bulbs. I’ll try to say where things were purchased when I write about them.
Oh such vivid colour Julie – a most fine trio. I’ve never grown anemones but could well be tempted 🙂
Thank you Anna – I had never grown them before I planted these clumps and would not want to be without them now. Having picked all the flowers on Monday both clumps are full of fresh buds already.
What a cheerful trio, Julie, and I like the idea of displaying it in the bathroom in with this simple yet stylish backdrop. I love anemones – perfect models and shall plant more of them in my new plot. 🙂
Thank you Annette – I love doing arrangements of three containers and these have lasted the week beautifully.
Lovely arrangements of spring flowers. I love the colours, particularly as so many spring flowers are yellow. The Anemones are gorgeous and Debbie is so pretty.
Thank you Chloris – I am sorry for the late reply!
This is such a pretty arrangement of bottles and colours, Mr Fokker is my favourite.
Thank you Julie – I think I agree about Mr Fokker – that blue is hard to beat.
I have never had any luck with anemones so I am really envious of your little beauties – love the simplicity of your arrangement – it just shows you don’t need masses of flowers for an arrangement to be effective.
Thank you Elaine – I really love making small arrangement of single flower types – it means you can have a lovely decoration with a minimum of time and effort.
Hello Julie, I just visited to this post, in fact first time to your blog I guess, and to see those flowers is really exciting. I am really stunned when I see those my purple flowers (I am a big fan of purple color). Are those flowers from your garden there? Good luck then, you should be a happy gardener at the moment. Cheers!