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.
First of all I must make an apology for missing ‘Flowers On Sunday’ yesterday. I think a combination of the weather and a number of inside jobs that needed attending to meant the day just slipped away from me. Lunch with friends and a little shopping nearly resulted in today going the same way, but despite the heavy rain this afternoon the dogs and I braved the garden to find a few blooms to show you. After the wind and rain of the last few days the tulips are now just dying stalks and my beautiful tree peony has lost most of her petals for another year. As I wait for the next big flush of flowers (roses, peonies, lupins and delphiniums are all looking very promising), there are still a lot of blooms to choose from. Everything was a bit damp and droopy this afternoon, however, so I have returned to a few small posies in my rusty French jam jar holder and a photo shoot in the greenhouse to maximise the very poor light.
The arrangement from the other side:
My floral excitement of the week is that I have finally got ranunculus in flower in the greenhouse! I know that I have been mentioning my ranunculus on and off for many months, mostly with a very despondent tone. I really did not think I was going to have any success. I planted quite a few in pots in the autumn and these overwintered in the greenhouse, but the leaves started to look sickly and overgrown in the early spring. The pots were thrown out into the garden a while ago and instead in February I planted a box of pink ranunculus that I bought from M&S into my greenhouse bed. This week they have finally burst into flower! I am delighted – they are not the biggest ranunculus I have ever seen, but the colour is lovely and they are mine, so I am very proud of them.
A friend referred to these as Persian buttercups last week – a name I have never heard before. Next season I am going to overwinter a batch in the Cutting Garden under a fleece tunnel to see how they get on. I will also plant another batch in the greenhouse bed after I take the Paperwhites out in February. Hopefully my ranunculus will keep flowering until the first of the sweet peas that I planted in the greenhouse take over. They are already well up their netting, so should not be long now.
Another jam jar is filled with the flowers of a mature philadelphus that grows very close to my kitchen window. This shrub is enormous and flowers profusely every year. I am not sure of the variety as it was already a mature shrub when we arrived here. It seems to be flowering very early this year – I would normally expect philadelphus in June or even early July. Like the viburnum carlesii, this is a plant that fills the warm summer evenings with a delicious scent, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have some warm evenings before the flowers fade.
My viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’ is looking very sad after all the rain, so I could not resist picking a few of the now very droopy snowballs before the rain destroys them altogether. You can also see some blooms of the perennial cornflower Centaurea montana, which is flowering around the garden.
My very first hardy annuals are flowering this week. These are self seeded plants that have been growing in my borders all winter – a contrast to the hardy annuals I have started from seed in the greenhouse in February, which will be a while yet before they flower. This year I am going to start off a batch of hardy annuals in the autumn and protect them with fleece through the winter as it really is the only way to get very early flowers. This week I have this beautiful blue cornflower, english marigolds and cerinthe major in flower. I have used mint leaves to support these cornflowers.
I have also realised that I made a big omission in the Cutting Garden last year. As the tulips go over and before the sweet peas start to flower I should be picking from biennials sown last June. As I forgot to sow any biennials in the Cutting Garden, things are a bit quiet there for now. I am buying seeds of Brompton stocks, Sweet Williams, Sweet Rocket, wallflowers and foxgloves at the moment ready to start sowing in a seed bed in June. The growing plants will then be moved into position in the autumn when I plant the tulip bulbs.
Whilst writing I am delighted to share the news that Art For Cure has raised just over £101,000 to date for Breakthrough for Breast Cancer. That is a fantastic result – I am pleased that Peonies & Posies was able to contribute a little to the sale proceeds as my lilac wreaths went home with someone! So great was the success of the weekend that there is now talk of an on line Art For Cure gallery – please do pop over to their website to read about their plans.
I will be back tomorrow with my promised review of Fresh From The Field Wedding Flowers. In the meantime I hope you will visit Cathy’s blog and see what she and the others have made from their gardens this week!
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[ Smiles ] Those flowers are a very beautiful sight to behold!
Thank you – I am glad you enjoyed them!
[ Smiles ] You are welcome!
I usually enjoy beautiful pictures such as yours!
Joy of joys to see your post appear in my inbox this evening as I too have just put some gorgeous pink ranunculus into a vase by my desk. They were growing on my allotment – I threw the corms in last autumn and they have come up in abundance. The flowers are like layers and layers of the thinnest tissue paper – just divine.
Also in the vase some self-seeded Matucana sweet peas which have germinated again on the allotment and are now flowering. The aroma is incredible and so, so early in the season.
You are so lucky to have sweet peas – early indeed! I had a few self seeders but they haven’t come to anything yet – I will have another look tomorrow. I am impressed that your ranunculus have grown so well without protection – perhaps they are hardier than I give them credit for. Do you think they would have done as well if they had sat under snow? I am so glad you enjoyed this post – thank you for commenting.
You are right – lots of plants seem much happier this spring after the mild winter. I will enjoy the Ranunculus while I can as next winter may be much harder.
Ah, photo shoots in the greenhouse – that’s a good idea, although my greenhouse is not as pretty as yours! The ranunculus is stunning, isn’t it – such a gorgeous pink! What a shame that they cause so much angst in the growing of them – I think I will just try planting them directly in my cutting beds this autumn. The combination of jars look so fresh with the contrasting colours – the centaurea is so dependable I can forgive it its desire to spread. Like you, now that I am thinking more about flowers for cutting, I will perhaps plan some autumn sowing although I have certainly not been short of anything for Monday’s vases. I think cosmos will be the first of this year’s seedlings to flower – but not for a few weeks yet. Isn’t it all so exciting! 🙂 Thanks for joining in with the vase meme.
Cosmos is one of my favourite summer annuals and it goes so well in a vase. I sometimes wonder if it is good for me to live in this permanent state of excitement Cathy – I even look forward to the winter these days! Centaurea is a bit of a thug – all of my plants will need splitting again this year – I am going to try it in my rabbit infested front garden next year – perhaps it will increase quickly enough to survive.
Your photographs are lovely as always, can I ask where did you buy your basket for the jars from?
I bought this basket, along with a lot of other goodies, at a quarterly sale of French collectibles in Bildeston, Suffolk. The website is http://boule-in.co.uk and the next sale is in June.
Thank you, I remember now, you posted this before. I have just looked what a wonderful company.
Julie, I love how you’ve combined these beautiful cuttings using the rusty jam jar holder. Congratulations on nurturing the ranunculus. Lovely color. And I am very fond of cornflowers–that blue fits right in. I have packets of Sweet William to sow too.
Thank you Susie – I will think of you when I sow my Sweet Williams.
Loved all the flowers.Ranunculus was really a treat. Julie sometime in you arrangement you should display in old milk bottles and in wooden crate. I am mad about it and never get fed up of them. Your flowers will be outstanding in them.
Thank you Sajina – I love wooden crates and milk bottles as well, but have not yet invested in either. I will look for some the next time I go shopping for props.
Hi Julie,
I am back.
What a pretty collection! My last Ranunculus were gone a month or more ago and the sweet peas collapsed during the last heatwave – your garden year is on an entirely different calendar than mine. The Philadelphus leaves me green with envy.
Thank you Kris – one of the things I love about blogging is seeing all the different blooms in gardens around the world. We are due a small heatwave over the next few days, so I think that will be the end of the spring flowers. I noticed that my oriental poppies are just about to pop which for me is a sign that summer is here.
I love this pretty collection of flowers, you’ve made good use of your pretty jar holder again, but looking very different from last time. I’ve never thought of growing Ranunculus, perhaps I should try this autumn.
You should certainly try ranunculus Christina – I would imagine you would have flowers much earlier in your warmer climate.