My garden is a little overwhelming at the moment - in a good way. True to predictions, our heavier than usual (even by pre-drought standards) winter rainfall has produced an abundance of spring flowers. It's tempting to flit from plant to plant, cutting a little of this and a little of that. For this week's vases, I focused my efforts by selecting 2 color schemes before heading out the door, one centered around the magenta color of a particular
Pelargonium and the other around the color of my pink
Freesias.
The first color scheme produced this:
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| Front view, which points out that not all "white"Freesias are the same. The bulbs for these two Freesia were acquired from the same source and planted in the same location but the flower on the left reads as ivory by comparison to the bright white of the one on the right. |
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| Back view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the left, the vase contains: Pelargonium cucullatum 'Flore Pleno' (aka 'Golf Ball'), Ageratum corymbosum, Coriandrum sativum, ivory Freesia, white Freesia, lavender Freesia, and Polygala myrtifolia 'Mariposa'. I love the red blushed leaf edges and flower buds of the Pelargonium and the lavender streaks on the back of the white Freesia. |
The second color scheme provided more of a challenge. The pink
Freesias have a blue undertone and many of my pink flowers have yellow undertones. Here's what I ended up with:
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| Front view: I added soft yellow notes with the Narcissi and the Leucadendron to pick up the subtle yellow in the Alstroemeria |
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| Back view: The pink tones of the Freesias and sweet peas are louder here |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: noID Alstroemeria, Argyrantemum frutescens, Centranthus ruber, Erigeron karvinskianus, Freesia, Lathyrus odoratus, Leucadendron 'Pisa', and Narcissus 'White Lion' and another noID Narcissus. The Erigeron and the Centranthus are virtually weeds here, albeit ones I allow to spread within limits. Most of the Narcissus died off following a warm spell the week before last and, as temperatures are expected to climb again this week, I thought I might as well cut what was left. |
I had some leftover stems, which I threw into a tiny vase:
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| A few short stems of Freesia, Argyranthemum, and Erigeron were tucked in here along with 2 slender stems of Ixia (aka African corn lily), which is currently blooming in the wrong place |
Last week's vases held up relatively well but I tossed out their contents anyway to make way for the new arrangements.
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| The first vase sits in the front entry and the second on the dining room table. The third sits on the desk in my office. |
For more vases,
visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, our "In a Vase on Monday" host.
All material © 2012-2017 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
