Monday 14 March 2022

In a Vase on Monday - More spring dainties

 Mondays are when I look for something in the garden to arrange and to link in with Cathy who started up this group.

Again using one of the smaller vases, I have a few spring dainties mostly picked this afternoon.  I wanted to include the sprig of flower from Pulmonaria Diana Clare.  On Saturday Brenda and Peter whom I met for the first time after an Alpine Group Zoom meeting, regularly come to HPS Somerset Group meetings.  Brenda now views both Six on Saturday and In a Vase on Monday, and we have very friendly emails regarding gardening. We also have now exchanged a few plants.  This week as well as a few snowdrops, I received a side plant of Pulmonaria Diana Clare, and I took her amongst others Pulmonaria Sissinghurst White.



To enable the plant of Diana Clare to establish itself, Brenda recommended that I remove its flower, and hence in today's garden vase I have used that removed shoot and a couple of stems of Sissinghurst white.  Last year I divided the original clump of Narcissus Rip van Winkle, and and happy that I have three clumps. They are around three weeks later compared with last year! Flowers are a little on the sparse side but I have decided to cut the open ones to allow the bulbs to bulk up nicely in their first year.  Joining them are some leaves of winter green/summer dormant Geranium mlaviflorum.

7 comments:

  1. Lovely. Your Pulmonaria Diana Clare is very nice and I really like your narcissus.

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  2. I love Pulmonaria and have tried growing it a couple of times but, regrettably, it's one of the many plants that doesn't like life in Southern California.

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  3. A delightful vase celebrating this very special time of the year. We've Pulmonaria growing here in the wild, their flowers always weighed down by visiting bumble bees. The white variety is very elegant. Have a good week :)

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  4. W#hat a perfect spring explosion in your vase!

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  5. I love Pulmonarias, especially the paler ones and anything vaguely blue. I had Sissinghurst White in my last garden, but it didn't stick around for some reason. I think I have four different ones now, but only a pink one is flowering so far.

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  6. A great splash of spring Noelle in your vase this week. 'Rip Van Winkle' has been living up to his name. 'Diana Clare' is a most striking pulmonaria. I was most interested to hear your friend Brenda's suggestion. I've heard of it in relation to other flowers but not pulmonarias. I wonder if it helps the plant to establish as it will not waste energy setting seed.

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    1. Brenda suggested removing the flowering spike and some of the larger leaves so as to treat it in a way one would do a cutting, so that the plant sent its energies into developing a better rooting system rather that the flowering spikes. It had been dug straight from the side of her growing plant at home, I find Sissinghurst and probably other pulmonarias better divided after their main flowering flushes, as at this time of the year Pulmonarias are all about flowering, and it hard to stop them. I have successfully divided Sissinghurst White over and over again multiple times over the years since I was given it by my my friend Kay.

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