Welcome to this week’s ‘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 from the garden for the house every week.
After what feels like a very long break I am delighted to be back at home and joining in again with this weekly habit of making a vase of flowers from my garden. This week I must confess that I made the vase yesterday morning and gave it as a present to a lovely new friend to decorate her table at a garden party in the afternoon. I will excuse myself on the basis that we are only just back in the UK and I have heaps of shopping, laundry and housework to do to get our lives back on course. I really did not want to miss out again this week, so decided to compromise by stretching the rules a little.
The mood of the garden has changed during my absence – it certainly feels like high summer now. All of my early summer beauties have faded from the scene to be replaced by the later summer bloomers including phlox, dahlias and echinacea. On my return I was delighted to welcome the first snapdragon blooms of the year to my Cutting Garden and these provided the spiky focus for my hand tied bouquet yesterday.
On such a hot day I was in the mood for some cool green and white shades. Having picked a handful of white snapdragons I then added white phlox, ammi majus and sedums to my basket.
To provide a contrast I decided to sacrifice some blackcurrants before the birds get to them. I am having a real love affair with unripe fruit at the moment, adding raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and branches of crab apples to most of my arrangements.
I also picked a few fresh fern leaves to provide a ‘collar’ around the arrangement. When making a hand tied bouquet it gives a neat finish if you surround the base of the flowers with an edging of greenery.
The sedum I used is the traditional ‘Autumn Joy’, which I like best when the flower heads have developed fully but have not yet started to colour up. I also used some of my second crop of ammi majus. The first crop, which was grown from overwintered plants, finished flowering whilst I was away and now needs to be pulled out. This second crop has much smaller flowers, but is still as pretty in bouquets.
The snapdragons were started off in the greenhouse in February so it has been a long wait to see the flowers. I love snapdragons and have planted three varieties this year: Antirrhinum White Giant, Liberty Classic Crimson and Apple Blossom.
I have kept this weeks post quite short whilst I ease myself back into a normal routine (if there is such a thing during school holidays!). We had a lovely break in Florida, spending time with my husbands family and enjoying eating out, sailing and trips to the beach. It is always hard to say goodbye to everyone at the end of our trips – the time goes far too quickly. I have much to catch up with in the garden now I am back and I will be paying particular attention to the Cutting Garden for the next month as I am growing flowers for a wedding in early September.
I hope you will find time to visit Cathy’s blog to see what she and the increasing numbers of participants in this lovely challenge have made this week.