My
Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' is at its summer peak now and I wanted to celebrate that by using the foliage in an arrangement for "In a Vase on Monday," the meme hosted by Cathy at
Rambling in the Garden.
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| Photos of my largest Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' - in the right light the leaves look like stained glass |
I'd originally thought I'd use
Grevillea 'Superb' as the floral accompaniment but, although there are lots of buds and fading blooms on those shrubs, there wasn't anything at peak bloom and, as those flowers don't develop much once cut, I decided to look elsewhere for floral color. What I came up with is more about foliage than flowers.
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| Front view highlighting Leucadendron and Leptospermum foliage |
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| Back view highlighting Phylica foliage |
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| The top view emphasizes the difference in textures among the foliage elements |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', Achillea millefolium 'Appleblossom', Coreopsis 'Desert Coral', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Phylica pubescens, and Russelia equisetiformis 'Flamingo Park' |
The heat was on over the past week and the pink blooms of
Eustoma grandiflorum (Lisianthus) are starting to fade but there's still plenty to cut. I was able to find a couple of "new" elements to change up the composition.
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| Front view |
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| A lopsided back view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the left, the vase contains: Eustoma grandiflorum, Grevillea 'Pink Midget', Abelia x grandiflora (recycled from one of last week's vases) and Gomphrena decumbens 'Itsy Bitsy' |
As I was tidying up the garden, I cut more of the flopping
Eustoma and, while cutting back some of the bedraggled
Agapanthus, mistakenly cut one of the fresher
Agapanthus stems as well. So, I created a third vase including both elements. I used
Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink' to integrate the colors of the
Eustoma and
Agapanthus.
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| Front view: I've previously said that I can't tell the difference between the 'Echo Pink' and 'Mariachi Pink' cultivars of Eustoma grandiflorum but the 2 stems here, cut from different plants, do show some differences |
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| Back view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the left, the vase contains: Eustoma grandiflorum, noID Agapanthus, Coleonema album, and Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink' |
All three vases found their places, usurping the spent vases created last week. We had an extended power outage at the peak of our recent heatwave and all of last week's blooms felt the effect of an afternoon without air conditioning.
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| The first vase sits in the front entry |
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| The second sits on the mantle in the master bedroom (but for how long?) |
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| And the third sits on the dining room table |
Visit Cathy to see what she and other gardeners have included in their vases this week.
All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
