Welcome to this weeks ‘In A Vase On Monday’ when, as usual, I am linking up with Cathy at Rambling In The Garden to join in with her challenge to find something from the garden to put into a vase every week.
First this week I must start with an apology – the last few weeks have rushed by far to quickly and I am very sorry that I am behind both on answering your lovely comments and on posting my promised photos of Petersham Nursery. We are back from our holidays now, so I promise I will be catching up this week!
Flowerwise all the late summer beauties are coming into their own in the Cutting Garden this week. There are dahlias, zinnias, rudbeckia, cosmos in shades from pure white to dark cranberry, a lovely grass called Panicum elegans ‘Frosted Explosion’ and the first of the gladioli. All this and the roses are starting to bloom again – it would be sheer bliss if the beds had not become overrun with weeds and annuals that have gone over whilst I have been gallivanting about on holiday!
This week I wanted to create some late summer drama making use of the lovely foliage plants which are looking so good at the moment, as well as showcasing the first Cafe Au Lait dahlia of the season!
I picked this rusty urn to act as a vase this week. It is one of a pair that I bought in a house sale last spring, but which I keep forgetting to make use of. The foliage that is dropping down is Amaranthus caudatus ‘Viridis’ and the grass floating above the arrangement is Panicum elegans ‘Frosted Explosion’. The seeds for both came from Sarah Raven and were started in the greenhouse back in March. I will show you pictures of both plants growing in the garden in my Cutting Garden review on Friday.
The feature flowers are the white David Austin rose William and Catherine and my very first Cafe Au Lait dahlia of the season. If you decide to try Cafe Au Lait for yourself be warned that it is very slow to come into flower. The other dahlias have been flowering for a few weeks now but this one is just starting. I also added a few heads of sedum and some springs of the annual blue clary Salvia viridis (also from Sarah Raven) to fill things out a bit more.
To help support this arrangement, I used my trick of pushing a ball of chicken wire into the top of the container so that all the stems can be fed through the wire and into the water.
I have some free time this week, so I was hoping to get outside and tidy up the Cutting Garden before taking photographs for Friday’s review, but we look set for a very wet week so I might have to confine myself to indoor gardening in the form of ordering my bulbs and seeds for autumn sowing. I have started making a list of what I plan to sow in late September and will be posting about that later next week.
As September is such a good time for new beginnings, I am also planning to start two new series next month. On the first of every month I am going to share with you the things that I will be looking forward too in the month to come – anything from the weather, the food or flowers to what I will reading or where I will be traveling – just a list of my seasonal inspirations. I am also conscious that I have not talked much about my vegetable garden for a while. I have had a good growing season so far and am cautiously optimistic that a pattern is developing that I can write about, so from September on the second Friday of the month I will be sharing what I am sowing, planting out and harvesting. I will continue with my regular posts – Jobs To Do on the first Wednesday, the Greenhouse Review on the second Wednesday and the Cutting Garden Review on the last Friday of each month.
Thank you as always to Cathy for encouraging us to get out in our gardens and bring a little of the outside joy inside – I hope you will pop over to her blog to see what she and the others have been cutting this week.
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just lovely:-)
Thank you Robbie – it is good to hear from you.
Julie: You are so ambitious with your two new series! Loving this urn and its textures and color. Here it is dry and hot, and oh my, the garden is not looking its best! We still have weeks of real summer here, so my time is spent watering and irrigating!
Thanks Libby – I find I work better if I set myself some planned posts but I hope I can keep up! I know what you mean about watering – that & dead heading take up most of gardening time at this time of year!
Oh if I ever get to your side of the pond, I hope I can visit your beautiful gardens….this week’s vase is stunning and quite stately, elegant and dramatic with the foliage and the Amaranthus. WOW! I love the new features you are going to do and hope you will join in on the first to my Seasonal Celebrations meme that I do quarterly. The post to join in will be up next Monday!
Donna of course you can come & visit! I really hope that you can make it over here one day. I will look for your Seasonal Celebrations meme & link in with my September Inspirations post.
Breathtaking! Your use of the draping Amaranthus shows off the lovely proportions of that urn. The dahlia and roses are pristine.
Thank you Susie – amaranths is one of those plants that just makes everything look beautiful – one of my must grows every year!
A real classic this week. Very imaginative and beautiful.
Thank you John.
As always an elegant arrangement, Julie. The Amaranthus caudatus āViridisā is so elegant the whole arrangement looks very sophisticated. Sarah Raven sells a good selection of more unusual plants.
Thank you Brian – I have been a Sarah Raven fan for many years now – every year I try something new from her seed catalogue and I am rarely disappointed.
That Cafe Au Lait dahlia is so nice! A very creative arrangement, Julie! And thanks for the chicken wire trick!
Thank you Anca – using chicken wire makes arranging so easy!
I am still wondering about that dahlia for next year, Julie – I shall have to succumb! And I will definitely grow this amaranthus again – I cut a stem yesterday to show a friend who had successful plants from the seedlings of the red variety I grew last year but despite more seedlings from me this year his have done nothing… but this green variety is stupendous! I love it – so tactile and such a pretty shade. It looks gorgeous with the soft colours of the dahlia and the roses. The frosted grass is such an asset too – is it hardy? Thanks for sharing – and for the anticipation of some interesting posts.
Thank you Cathy – I am sure you will love the dahlia – it is an amazing shade and hard to capture on camera – a mix of coffee, ballerina pink and nude in one colour if that makes any sense. The grass is just a half hardy annual but it is very easy to grow.
You have surpassed yourself this week Julie; you have created a stunning arrangement. I have ordered seed of this fabulous green Amaranthus, it supports the other flowers beautifully. I’ve never done an arrangement in an urn, I will have to look out for one.
Thank you Christina and do look out for an urn – mine are made from a form of plastic so very light, but you would never know – even in real life they look like genuine rusty metal.
What a stunning arrangement, I love the combination of colours, shapes and textures. This is an inspiration for growing half hardy annual grasses to add to flower arrangements, thank you.
Thank you Kate!
The master or mistress of flower arranging at work – just beautiful Julie. You always choose the right vessel for your arrangements too. I saw cafe au lait growing at Woolbeding last year and it is huge. The fact that you have shown it to such good effect in a mixed arrangement is testament to your flair and ability. Looking forward to your new series as well.
Thank you Sarah! I think just using one Cafe Au Lait in an arrangement stops it overwhelming the other flowers.
What a beautiful arrangement, Julie! Much as I love that Dahlia, its the Amaranthus and the Panicum that make this arrangement for me – they add such drama.
Thank you Kris – i am glad that you love these foliage plants as much as I do. It really wouldn’t matter what else I put in the arrangement as these two steal the show.
Oh that really is a most beautiful vase Julie. I saw dahlia ‘Cafe Au Lait’ in the flesh for the first time last week at the Southport Flower Show and decided that it’s a must for next year. It’s useful to know that it’s a late bloomer but whether I will remember is another matter š The panicum looks more attractive in your photos than I’ve seen it illustrated in various catalogues. How tall does the amaranthus grow and does it need staking? Good luck with the battle against the weeds.
Thank you Anna. I think the panicum looks better in the arrangement because it is cut short – in the garden the airy heads sit on top of a long stem. The green amaranthus is just above knee height and I don’t stake it – although I will remove tassels that are too heavy or growing over the path to keep the weight down. The red variety is growing straight up at the moment – probably over a metre high and still going so it will be interesting to see how it progresses – it is new to me this year.
Amazing and so beautiful!
Have a great week, take care…
Titti
Thank you Titti – I hope you have a lovely weekend ahead!
The combinations are all spot on. The grass is so soft, and gives a lovely contrasting uplifting feel.
Thank you Noelle – this is the first time I have grown this grass and I am so pleased with it!
Reading your posts is always richly rewarding. You have been most generous and though we miss you when you don’t have time to post, we know you’ll be back with more wonders.