New flowers are popping up here and there throughout my garden. Plants don't follow a precise calendar but it seems at least some plants may be responding to the rain we received earlier this month by blooming a couple of weeks ahead of their usual schedule.
I've been watching buds forming on my
Echium handiense for a few weeks now and last week noticed that a neighbor's plant was already blooming. On Saturday morning I noticed mine had begun to bloom too so I knew it was a prospect for In a Vase on Monday. Other elements of the arrangement, including the vase itself, were a matter of pure serendipity.
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| I met a friend for a belated birthday celebration on Saturday (her birthday, not mine). After lunch we toured a couple of secondhand shops and I found the wonderful glass vase shown here. A great buy for $16! |
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| While checking out my friend's garden later in the afternoon, I discovered she had a beautiful Bush Germander (Teucrium fruticans). I begged a few flowering stems, as well as a couple of seedlings. The flower color is a much deeper blue than the cultivar I grew in my former garden. |
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| I added 2 stems of the tall-flowered Dianthus I picked up on a shopping trip last week and a couple of stems of Camellia 'Taylor's Perfection'to echo the pink color of the Echium's buds |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Echium handiense, noID Ceanothus, Diathus caryophyllus 'Cut Flower White', Camellia hybrid 'Taylor's Perfection' and Teucrium fruticans (possibly 'Compactum'). The Echium is considered critically endangered in its native habitat in Spain. I've never seen it in a garden center. My plant comes from my local botanic garden. |
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| There were a few leftover flowers that didn't fit into my new vase. I popped these into a tiny vase. In addition to small stems of Ceanothus and Teucrium, these included several stems of Osteospermum '4D Silver'. |
The snapdragons in my cutting garden provided the jumping off point for my second arrangement. The plants are already showing signs of rust, probably spurred by the warm temperatures that followed the persistent rain we enjoyed the week before last.
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| I played on the colors in the snapdragon, adding stems of Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', which are currently taking on a reddish tinge, and Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' |
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| The high winds that blew off and on all last week took out most of my paperwhite Narcissus but I threw a few of the remaining stems in this vase |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Antirrhinum majus 'Bronze', Myrtus communis, Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', Papaver nudicaule (Iceland poppy) with noID Narcissus,Pyrethropsis hosmariense (Moroccan daisy), and, in the center, Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' |
My vases assumed spots in the front entry and the dining room table as usual. The tiny vase of leftovers landed on a side table in the living room.
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| Unfortunately, the Camellias began dropping one by one almost as soon as I cut them and I had to juggle the stems in the first vase to make up for the loss of those blooms |
For more Monday vases,
visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
