Although my
Agapanthus continue to produce a few new stalks here and there, I think their floral display has reached its peak. There are fewer blooms this year, presumably due to our exceptionally poor winter rainy season, but I have enough clumps of these plants to provide a good show nonetheless. So cutting a handful of those tall stalks for this week's vase was a no-brainer; however, to change things up just a little, I included two of the mutant stems I recently discovered in my arrangement.
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| Normally, Agapanthus produce single flowers at the top of each long, straight stalk. As you can see in the photo above, this Agapanthus produced a second bloom mid-way along the stalk, which has curved in a gentle arc. I'm assuming this is an example of fasciation. |
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| I liked how the fasciated stem stretched out of the vase as if offering its blooms for closer examination. Unfortunately, the second fasciated stem got lost in the middle of the arrangement but it's in there! |
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| The top-heavy stems tended to flop so I added glass marbles to the vase to give them support |
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| This was yet another vase that was hard to photograph from overhead |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: noID Agapanthus, Eustoma grandiflorum, Pandorea jasminoides 'Alba', Abelia x grandiflora 'Hopley's Variegated', and Leucanthemum x superbum |
Of course I didn't stop at one vase. With our morning marine layer firmly in place along the coast, we're still enjoying cooler than average temperatures and flowers remain plentiful. It's a huge difference from the start of summer 2016, when a sudden spike in temperature to 105F (40C) caused the widespread loss of not just flowers but entire plants and every lemon on my tree. It took a good year for the lemon tree to recover and I count myself lucky it did. This is a long-winded way of explaining why we so appreciate our gray summer mornings.
My second vase was inspired by the Drumstick Alliums in bloom this month. I planted three species of
Alliums in early November.
Allium aflatunense 'Violet Beauty' was a complete bust - I planted 18 bulbs and got no blooms.
Allium rosenbachianum bloomed early and well but I'd planted only 3 bulbs. I wasn't impressed with the foliage of
Allium spharocephalon but most of those 10 bulbs surprised me by blooming this month despite their spindly stalks.
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| It didn't take me too long to find flowers and foliage to pair with those lime and raspberry Allium blooms |
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| I used a small glass cream pitcher unearthed during a recent purge of unused kitchen items as a vase |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left, this vase contains: Arthropodium cirratum (aka Renga Lily), Abelia x grandiflora 'Edward Goucher', Allium spharocephalon (aka Drumstick Allium), Westringia fruticosa 'Morning Light', Hebe 'Wiri Blush', and Origanum 'Monterey Bay' |
For more Monday vases,
visit our gracious host, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
