I'd hoped I might have
Camellia sasanqua to use in my vase this week. When the weather cooled a week ago, a few of these flowers began to appear in a shady area adjacent to my vegetable garden. I also had a back-up plan: if there were too few
Camellias, I could use stems of
Tagetes lemmonii, which had also started to bloom in earnest. Then, we got another heatwave. The
Camellias shriveled and even the moderately drought tolerant
Tagetes, buffeted by the Santa Ana winds (aka "devil winds") that accompanied the heat, looked worse for the wear and tear. So the search for flowers and foliage to fill this week's vase, prepared in connection with the meme sponsored by Cathy of
Rambling in the Garden, became another scavenger hunt. The resulting vase is a mix of flowers that survived the heat and a few plants that love the heat, including one recent acquisition.
If this composition has a focal point, I suppose it's the
Bougainvillea, a heat-loving plant. Our red Bougainvillea, inherited with the house, has never been a vigorous grower but, it it were, my husband probably would have removed it by now as he considers this an "evil" plant. This stems from the fact that the
Bougainvillea at our former house grew about a foot a week and scratched his beloved electric car, which he'd lovingly converted from gas-power. Removing those plants with their vicious thorns was a monumental exercise he isn't likely to forget. However, this
Bougainvillea isn't anywhere near as ambitious - it gets by with an annual trim (which I handle as I wouldn't trust my husband not to get carried away).
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| The Bougainvillea picks up the color of the single stem of Asclepias tucked in against it |
The other elements in this week's vase include:
- Asclepias curassavica 'Silky Red'
- Gomphrena (no ID), probably G. haageana, picked up on a whim on a recent swing through a garden center
- Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder,' repeating last week's performance
- Pennisetum setaceum 'Fireworks'
- Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon'
- Tagetes lemmonii (aka Copper Canyon Daisy)
- Zinnia (no ID), one of the few seedlings which survived on nominal infusions of water this summer
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| The new Gomphrena came in red and orange so I got a few of each |
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| The red-tinged bracts of Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' almost look like flowers |
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| The furry flowers of Pennisetum 'Fireworks' appeared with the heat |
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| I picked the least scrappy looking Copper Canyon daisies to add a whiff of their delicious scent to the vase |
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| I cut one of the few remaining Zinnia in my garden |
I cut a variety of other floral and foliage survivors that didn't make the final cut, including
Leonotis leonurus (aka lion's tail) and
Bulbine frutescens 'Hallmark' (aka snake flower and cat's tail). These ended up in another vase with single stems of coleus and the yellow form of
Russelia equisetiformis.
The main vase landed in the foyer.
These are my contributions to Cathy's popular weekly meme focused on flowers gathered from one's own garden. Please
visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see her creation and to find links to posts by other contributing gardeners.
All material
© 2012-2014 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
