While the Midwestern US has been turned upside down by a plague of tornadoes and the Southeastern US has been hit with a major heatwave, coastal Southern California has continued to be pleasantly cool and comfortable with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 60sF (17-20C). We even got another light touch of rain on Sunday, while the
mountain areas got snow. We know we're really, really lucky.
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| Saturday was mostly sunny but Sunday was cloudy and damp. Near 6pm, we got a sudden downpour that pushed the day's rain total to 0.15/inch and brought our annual total to date to 19.45 inches, which is stellar. |
Under threat of rain Sunday morning, I decided to cut a couple of my warm orange
'Medallion' roses, which started blooming last week. I thought of combining them with
Leucospermum or
Grevillea flowers but I quickly took another track with the addition of a few
Calendula blooms.
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| I wouldn't normally have thought of mixing the peach colored rose with red but there was just enough orange in the Calendula and the foliage of the dwarf peppermint willow to make it work |
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| Back view: I can't remember the foliage of the peppermint willow ever turning this red |
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| Top view: This particular foxglove stem had a cream-colored cast and the red dots echoed the reds in other elements |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' (aka dwarf peppermint willow), Alstroemeria 'Claire', Calendula 'Zeolights', Digitalis purpurea 'Dalmation White', Ozothamnus diosmifolius (aka rice flower plant), and Rosa 'Medallion' |
My Renga lilies (
Arthropodium cirratum) just began blooming too. Although I love these plants, I've found them difficult to combine with other flowers in a vase, which doesn't mean I didn't take a stab at it.
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| A stronger foliage back-drop may have helped the sprays of the Renga lily stand out more |
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| I dressed up the back view with the addition of white Agrostemma |
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| Higgledy-piggledy top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Arthropodium cirratum (aka Renga lily), Agrostemma 'Ocean Pearls', Polygala fruticosa 'Petite Butterfly', Centaurea "Silver Feather', and foliage of Cercis occidentalis (aka Western redbud) |
For more Monday vases,
visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. To those of you in the US, best wishes for a wonderful Memorial Day!
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| This could be the last time you see flowers in these positions for several months. We've already started packing up the half of the house that'll be impacted by our remodel. |
All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
