In a Vase on Monday - Keepers

As the gardening year progresses many of us will be pondering on what has done well and planning for improvements, with more of, or less of next year for particular plants, and deciding what will definitely be keepers, at least for another season or so.  For sure I am doing this almost on a fortnightly basis with our new garden, as it has been evolving so quickly.  All the borders are now marked out, and there is not a blade of grass left in the back.  

I must be less impatient, and covet less since I have very limited room to plant all the plants that I have not only enjoyed in the past, but the ones I still am searching for or the one, and the ones I admire  in those beautiful vases posted each month.  To admire and get satisfaction from others hard work and artistry should be an end in itself sometimes.....

The best Keepers which I have been blessed with this year are new friends made since arriving on our new patch.  

As for plants, I have chosen for today for my Vase one that I have grown for the first time this year.  A couple of months ago during a visit to Alison C's garden she pulled up a plant of  Briza Maxima which had already dried to a crisp under our unusually hot summer sun.  It has made a lovely focal point in our living room during the last few weeks.  Dried plant material makes very good keepers, as does this Briza maxima.

This arrangement is from plants grown in our garden.  I planted the seed at the very end of April on a bare patch, from seed received from Cathy back in November 2015.  Those seeds were also good Keepers.  Cathy is the dedicated leader of IAVOM and each week she posts vases, with great stories, charming supporting artifacts, stories, and gardening musings.  Do go and see what she has posted.....

This little 'still life' is on the Kitchen windowsill, with some bay leaves and rosemary left over from a stem I had picked for a recipe a couple of days ago, and red chillis given to me by Jean.  I am attracted to keepers...and like my little stash such as jams and preserves, books, bars of soap to scent drawers.....and seeds.  Must go and find envelopes and start to package seeds up for next year and to share around with other gardeners,

I get such a great enjoyment from the garden, and also from reading.  I am currently reading 'The Curious Gardener' by Anna Pavord.  If you click on her name, I've put a link into Dessert Island Discs, and hope you enjoy her enthusiasm.

I started with 'September' in the book,  read to the end and then have started from January again.  At the end of each month there is a useful reminder of jobs to be done...Along the way interesting articles.  As a link to my arrangement where I have a few bay leaves saved from the pruning of our large bay one of the few shrubs retained, here is what I read only yesterday...

"...bay trees planted close to houses recall the time when gardeners believed quite literally that 'neither witch not devil, thunder nor lightning will hurt a man in the place where a bay tree is', as the seventeenth-century herbalist, Nicholas Culpepper, put it."