Today is the fourth anniversary of "In a Vase on Monday," the addictive meme hosted by Cathy at
Rambling in the Garden. I joined in several months after Cathy launched these weekly posts challenging her fellow garden bloggers to create arrangements from floral and foliage materials they have on hand. I think I've missed just one week since I started participating. This week, Cathy challenged participants to use something other than a vase to hold their creations.
My first arrangement utilizes an ornamental teapot. The teapot had belonged to my mother-in-law. It's not fine china but I'd always admired it and, when we cleared her home for sale after we lost her, I brought it home as a remembrance of her.
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| The starting point for this arrangement was the peach-colored rose. Now that our weather is finally cooler, the roses are gradually reappearing. |
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| Rear view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the teapot contains: Rosa 'Medallion', Abelia 'Kaleidoscope', Agonis flexuosa ' Nana', berries of Nandina domestica, Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream', Grevillea 'Superb', and Rosa 'Joseph's Coat' |
Because I've featured the teapot before, I challenged myself to try something else I haven't used before. I'd been looking for a piece of driftwood to support a collection of succulents as a display in my
new bromeliad garden and, luckily, I finally found one last week. The question then became: how do I put this together? I'd decorated a pumpkin with succulents before but the driftwood was a little trickier to work with.
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| The first issue was to decide which side of the driftwood piece should be up and which down |
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| I assembled my supplies, which included succulents, 2 kinds of glue, plastic gloves, and bagged moss. In addition to small rooted succulents, I used cuttings from plants in my garden, including the Crassula pubescens in a pot at my elbow. |
I'd viewed a couple of on-line tutorials about affixing succulents to driftwood but didn't strictly follow the recommended guidelines. The tutorials made use of cuttings but I also used some small, rooted plants, wrapping them in moss and stuffing them in pockets here and there without using glue. How well that will work in the long-run remains to be seen. Here's a look at the finished product:
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| Front view |
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| Back view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the arrangement includes: Crassula capitella and Echeveria agavoides; Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi'; a red-tipped Rhipsalis (shown with a noID succulent); Crassula perforata 'Variegata' and Crassula pubescens ssp radicans; and Tillandsia 'Capitata Peach' |
The teapot landed on the dining table and the driftwood found its place in my bromeliad garden. The table in the front entry remains unadorned this week.
To see how others addressed this week's challenge,
visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All material © 2012-2017 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
