Last week, I reported on an effort to adjust an
excess of yellow color in my back garden. It certainly seems that everything is coming up yellow right now, vases included.
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| This week the front and back views are nearly identical |
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| Top view, dominated by the flat florets of Achillea 'Moonshine' |
My original plan was to use purple
Solanum xanti as my focal point and yellow touches as accents but, while the
Solanum is flowering well, it can't match the yellow flowers in abundance, as a look at my garden demonstrates.
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| This bed contains Solanum xanti and Cotula lineariloba, among other things. I tucked a few cuttings of Cotula in the bed late last summer, without even rooting them beforehand, not really expecting them to survive. The plants spread quickly, crawling through and over everything in their path. |
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| The Solanum self-seeds freely, tucking itself between the patio and Senecio vitalis here, but it isn't nearly as aggressive as the Cotula |
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| And Achillea 'Moonshine' is currently dominating the back border |
Without enough purple color to temper the screaming yellow, I looked for bright green foliage in an effort to achieve balance. The grapevine planted along the fence with my neighbor to the north is also scrambling over everything in sight at the moment, so I took the clippers to it.
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| The arbor that my husband built to support the grapevine isn't sufficient to contain it. It's already reaching into the persimmon trees planted on either side of it. Yes, cutting the vines will reduce the grapes the vine produces but the birds, squirrels and raccoons usually take the grapes before they're ripe anyway. |
Here are close-ups of what went into the vase:
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| Clockwise from the left: Achillea 'Moonshine', Abelia x grandiflora 'Hopley's', Cotula lineariloba 'Big Yellow Moon', grapevine foliage, and Solanum xanti |
The yellow color is still dominant but the curves of the grapevine give the vase a graceful quality, rather like a woman wearing a flashy designer evening gown.
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| The vase sits on the dining room table |
For the bedroom mantle, I sought out softer colors, stealing a little
Dorycnium hirsutum (aka Hairy Canary Clover) from the bees as my starting point. The clover's foliage feels like cashmere to the touch.
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| From the left, the vase contains" noID pink Alstroemeria, white and pink forms of Centranthus, and Dorycnium hirsutum |
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| The finished vase on the bedroom mantle |
I had floral and foliage leftovers from one of last week's vases and plants cut during my sojourn through the garden so I popped these into a third vase.
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| More yellow! |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, this vase contains 'Alstroemeria 'Princess Claire' (left over from last week's vase), Abelia x grandiflora 'Hopley's', noID Antirrhinum, a noID sunflower seedling, Phlomis fruitcosa, and Trachelospermum jasminoides |
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| This vase is heavy so I hope it'll withstand any wind gusts that blow through the front door. I tucked my over-used ceramic frog away this week in favor of a ceramic mouse riding a butterfly, mainly to add a color other than yellow to the arrangement. |
Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see more flower and foliage arrangements.
All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
