Welcome to ‘In A Vase On Monday’ when I am linking up with Cathy at Rambling In The Garden to join her challenge to fill a vase for the house from the garden every week.
Having come through the lean months of winter we are now on easy street! New blooms are bursting out every day on trees, shrubs and bulbs. My Cutting Garden is back in action with tulips popping in every bed. I have been giving some thought to this challenge this week and have decided that as my Cutting Garden is a slightly larger affair than is normal, it would not be any sort of a challenge for me if I just pick from there every week throughout the summer. So to make this more realistic I am going to restrict myself to using material from the main garden on a Monday. I will focus on flowers from the Cutting Garden every Sunday instead.
As I always plant a few sweet peas, annuals and dahlias in my garden beds they will still appear in posts, but I will have had to make the decision to cut material from my displays, rather than using flowers that are grown as crops. We are all reluctant to cut flowers that are part of our main borders, so this will keep the element of challenge going for me throughout the summer. It will also give me the opportunity to talk a bit about the flowering sequence in my garden.
This week did not present a challenge. The daffodils are still blooming and there are plenty of muscari flowering along the woodland walk. I think I have had more pleasure this year from my daffodils than ever before and this is primarily because I have been cutting small posies throughout the season and bringing them into the kitchen where I can enjoy their beauty and fragrance throughout the day.
In this jug I have made a spring arrangement using my later flowering varieties of narcissi and muscari. To give the arrangement height I have added a few precious stems of one of my all time favourite shrubs Exchorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’.
These beautiful ruffled petals look very much like narcissi White Cheerfulness, but they are flowering in another patch and I seem to remember that they are the very similar but slightly later flowering Bridal Crown.
Lower down the display I have used narcissi Silver Chimes, which is a very fragrant delicate looking multi headed variety. This is the last to flower in a succession of blooms establishing under the old trees in the centre of the garden. The display started with February Gold in the last week of February. All these bulbs have been planted in the last two years and I am hoping that as the years go by they will increase naturally. We leave the grass under the trees to grow long until later in the summer. This gives the bulbs ample time to die back naturally, so feeding them for next years flowers.
It is hard to capture this drift, so I have tried from an upstairs window. You can see my very small Great White Cherry in the background.
This is another view taken at ground level.
Finally a close up of Exchorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’. This is a beautiful shrub with an arching habit that I hope will produce an abundance of sprays for arrangements as it matures. It is best grown in full sun in well drained soil.
I hope you have enjoyed the flowers I have picked from my garden this week and that you will pop over to Cathy’s blog to see what she and the others have made this week.
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Beautiful, you put your choices together so carefully and then photograph them to perfection, which isn’t easy as I am finding. I think I take good photographs of the garden but my vases are a disappointment. I hope you will be writing more about your cuttings garden on whatever day works best for you, I am learning so much from you and it is very much appreciated.
Thank you Christina – I am so glad you are finding my experiences useful! I will certainly be writing lots more about the Cutting Garden – I think a lot of us are very interested in growing our own flowers these days. I might try a post or two about photographing flowers as well – I am very much a novice photographer but I have learnt a lot over the last year and it might be useful to share some of that knowledge.
So beautiful, Julie! Your garden is such an inspiration…
Have a great week!
Lisa
Thank you Lisa – I hope you have a great week too!
Lovely. The blue and creamy white colour scheme is so fresh-looking.
Have you tried growing Exochorda The Bride from seed? If you sow the seeds when fresh they come up like mustard and cress.
I have never tried to grow any shrub from seed Chloris – I will watch my plant for the seeds forming – will this happen soon or much later in the season?
Julie, your arrangement evokes freshness and light. The flowers work together so well with the simple lines of the pitcher. I like the way you’ve further refined the requirements for facing this vase challenge each Monday. Sometimes imposing limits like that is helpful. Still lots of room for creativity and choice. susie
Thank you Susie – I really enjoyed this challenge when it stretched me through the winter. By removing the option of the Cutting Garden I think it will continue to be a challenge through the year and will result in my using a much greater variety of material.
I am very impressed that you are taking steps to keep it a challenge – I agree with you that having a challenge is an incentive, well , at least it is for you and me 😉 Whatever you put in your vases will always look wonderful because of your photography and you have really captured the soft colours of those narcissi. The plain jug is all that was needed, wasn’t it? I don’t know Exchorda but it looks a really useful and pretty shrub and I expect we shall see more of it from you. Thanks for your enthusiasm for the challenge 🙂
You are welcome Cathy – I am much more in tune with my garden now that we are doing this, so thank you as well! My Exchorda is such a young shrub that I think that will be it for cuttings this year – I do recommend that you plant one though.
Julie, you live in a real natural world .so beautiful to read your stories.
Thank you Sajina – I am glad that you enjoy what I share!
Your garden is so stunning, Julie, and I’m very envious of that fantastic glasshouse in the background. All these fine mature trees and the drifts of daffodils among them – pure bliss! And your vase is beautiful as usual, light and graceful. I just planted Exochorda and enjoy its flowers – maybe in a few years it’ll be big enough to steal a few branches 🙂
Thank you Annette – I am very lucky to have that lovely glasshouse! My Exchorda was planted two autumns ago and after a slow start is looking good this year, so hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
Oh what a pretty vase Julie. I’ve seen narcissus ‘Silver Chimes’ on a few blog posts this spring and it is now on my wish list for autumn bulb planting.
Thank you Annette – you should certainly plant some Silver Chimes – I think it might be my favourite narcissi this year!