Flowers and Books

 Although I have been somewhat lax in joining the rendezvous for In a Vase on Monday, that is not to mean that flowers have not been cut and arranged.  They have however been just simple affairs, and could not be called 'arrangements' in any sense of the word.  The vases  just hold a few flowers which have either caught my attention, or needed to be cut as part of the management of the garden or plant.

In the first instance below, this vase has been sitting on the mantlepiece for a number of months.  This is a rather special vase to me and the twigs picked up from under a road side growing tree after the storms earlier this year.  They are from The Alder Tree and although bearing both male and female catkins on the same tree, these little cone like fruits are the remains of the female fruit. I am often pulled towards monochrome arrangements and this has to be a favourtie at the moment.

I'm a little behind in linking in my reading and the best book that I have read for a very long time, and a good pairing for this arrangement of the Alder, is How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley, of which this is an excellent review.

How to Read a Tree by Tristan Gooley

For my next arrangement only picked earlier today it is roses, stems from a couple of the Rose Home Florist Timeless Collection. No greenery seemed to match the rich green of the healthy leaves, so none was chosen. 

To go with this arrangement 

This was one of the two books we discussed at our last WI Book Club lunch meeting.  I quite liked this book, and felt the style and perhaps simplicity implied to me that it would be the second book the main character Marianne Clifford would write especially as it is written in the first person.  I would give it a four out of five, but would quite surprised that few others in the group liked it at all. 

With having to clear a bed of old growth partly to mulch and to allow new growth to emerge for another wave of flowering, I just popped a few saved stems into a little vase.  Blue and white make for a nice combination and up close the structure is exquisite. White  Centaurea Montana Alba and the Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue.

The second book we discussed was There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak.  What a beautiful book, and a great story linking people across different eras, backgrounds, and continents.  Our group apart from two who gave up about a third of the way in, really liked it, and with their encouragement, those two were encouraged to persevere and it will be interesting to hear how they got on at our next meeting. 

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

Some time ago I enjoyed meeting Elif Shafak, and also hearing her at a book presentation at Kenilworth library, and have read at least two of her books.  I really would like to read more of hers.  

In a Vase on Monday

 I've been contributing to In a Vase on Monday for a few years, and most of the plants have featured once or twice in vases.  In some cases many more times that that.  This time it may be first that the Ajuga reptans 'Atropurpurea' is featuring,  

I am going through a period when I feel that I wish to have a little space, to be quiet and post to my own rhythm.  My friends who log in regularly to my blog will understand and forgive me.  Of course your support and comments on posts are always welcome and I shall respond to them.  I may also pop in to view the memes and comment as and when I feel I have the time or inclination, and of course I have my good friend's blogs that I shall continue to follow.  Fear not, there is nothing wrong, but it is time to step back a little.

This is April/May's book club read, which quite surprisingly I enjoyed, and can't quite put into words how Clare Chambers managed to write about these various topics with 'In a Good Light' which piqued my curiosity and got me turning pages. With different characters and unusual situations it is indeed a good read.  As I went to check reviews just now I read that 'Without even noticing, Esther Fairchild has become locked into routine'.  The penny has dropped: that is how I have been feeling for a few weeks about my interests and blogging!

I picked this book up second hand at our last HPS meeting, and I shall be dipping into this over the coming days.  Mr S and I visited Highgrove just before the Queen died last year, and the gardens were totally inspiring. 

Although I have kept the title this week, as it is Monday and I am showing a vase of flowers from the garden picked today, I won't be linking my post to that of Cathy's, and the same goes for SOS which is on Saturdays when I write about six items from the garden.  I shan't be linking in, but as and when I find something interesting to say about plants in the garden, these will be written about in an ad hoc manner.  I have used the label Garden Posies which I used to  use before joining in with IAVOM.

In a Vase on Monday - Its too hot

Its too hot, even in greenest Somerset.  We have birds queuing for the three water stations.  My pots of Japanese Grass Hakonechloa add a cool element in garden and my lady which stood near the pond in my previous garden tries to keep cool too!  All these pictures were taken before breakfast as I toured round the garden, watering pots.

I could have picked Clematis Vienetta which reminds me of the cool iced dessert...
or white Iceberg Roses

or the pretty white edged sedum, which I believe is Sedum erythrostictum 'Frosty Morn'

This plant came from my friend and IAVOM contributor....

On Saturday, we went and spent some time at the Country Garden Festival then had a walk around the Bishop's Palace Gardens.  Alison brought a lovely bunch of sweetpeas which are so perfect, and in the colour matching Caithness Vase they have been on the mantel shelf, and this morning, I was feeling too hot to go out and pick flowers.  It Monday, its in a Vase, they were grown by an IAVOM contributor, but not me!

After taking this photograph, succumbing to their wonderful fragrance...and yes the pollen count is very high...I thought of my neighbour, and off they went to spend another couple of days spreading their charm and beauty with her.  Kay knows she is getting someone else's flowers....often my IAVOM flowers go to a neighbour.

Its not just Alison who is on the ball with regards to Sweetpeas...just go and see Cathy's.

New Back Garden

It a frustrating time for me...I would like to be planting, but we have a lot more earth moving, planning and laying out to do.   Plants which I brought are in pots or were temporarily positioned in the first quarter of the garden prepared early last year.

These was very little in the garden but at the end a clump of Mahonia, which when in flower buzzes with bees.  It will be just a few weeks till then.

Meanwhile the bulbs which I plant under shrubs in tubs are coming out with the sun.

And its hard to resist spending pocket money on pretty primulas.

I have had this little primrose for many years and it has moved with me to its sixth garden.  I found the first plant in the bottom of a hedgerow growing alongside standard wild primroses in South Marston where I had an allotment and made friends with a farmer close by.  It performs right at the start of spring and makes a delightful addition beneath shrubs.

A couple of years ago I noticed growing in another part of the garden a similar one but with a bit of a variation.  The leaves were more rolled and behind the primrose flower petals, a larger calyx somewhat separate from the petals is more prominent and ruffled.  We had lots of ants and gravel areas in the garden, where they may have dropped seeds, which then germinated and new plants flourished.  I was pleased to see that this variation was amongst the ones I brought down to Somerset.

If any readers would like to contribute more explanations, please do leave your comments on this change.

October Garden Update

Last month the Amalanchier trees in the front garden turned red and golden, and lost the majority of its leaves within the month.

I managed to buy three packets of wallflower plants from the market this week, all thirty hopefully ivory white,  which have taken the place of the antirrhinums and asters.  By the trees I planted bulbs of Allium Purple Sensation.  This is the first time I have Allium Bulbs.  I hope the colours of purple and white work in the spring sunshine, we shall see!! All the golden lonicera: Lonicera nitida 'Baggensen's Gold have established themselves nicely, and will continue to be trimmed, maybe ending up as four topiary balls.

The Fuchsias are still doing very well, and this lovely 'coral' coloured one taken from 'cuttings' gleamed from a posy of flowers given to me by Janet in Kenilworth has found a shady position on the table.

As the light changes I am finding different plants associate well such as the Pseudowintera Colorata Red Leopord with its red spots against the waving Japanese Grass Hakonechloa macra Albostriata, both growing on in pots, but with the grass having a leg up on another upturned pot!

This last week I could not resist spending all my pocket money in one go, buy five get one free:

I had been speaking to Graham who sits at the pop up stall in Wells close by the bus station with plants from his Tadham Alpines nursery, about one of the plants, and since it was there again I just had to get it...that started a selection of another five pots!!!!

Crespis incana

In effect this is a pink hawksbit.  Since I have yellow ones growing wild in my front lawn, I feel that this pink one will add a touch of class.

Astilbe glaberina saxatillis

Just because this lady loves leaves, form, and little astilbes.  I had this in my previous garden, but left it behind.

Tiarella mint chocolate

Lovely leaves...looking forward to seeing how this differs from the other Tiarella I brought with me.

Thymus Highland cream

Where we have finally placed the washing line, will be the thyme 'lawn', with several varieties forming a low patch.  Around it, about where we stand to hang out the washing, there will be stepping stones and small loose stones through which I hope the thymes will crawl.

Primula Marginata Napoleon

I just have a thing for Primulas, I used to win prizes with golden showers in particular, but with a smaller garden, I thought they would be behind me, but I just loved this one.  When I read up that this had been collected from 'Napoleonic trenches', I know one friend for whom I shall buy another one, this week.

Geranium ballerina

Such a well grown plant, and a geranium...it had to make up the sixth plant for this group.

And just in case I think that I now have every plant a happy girl could have, I saw this one in my friend's lovely garden...thou shalt not covet came to mind!!!!  I made sure that Alison checked it was still there as I was leaving.  Maybe next year there will be sufficient tubers for propagation, or I will find the plant on my 'hunting' expeditions to nurseries.

Corydalis curviflora ssp rosthornii 'Blue Heron'

With lovely fern like leaves and red stems, then blue flowers next year....it just has that wow factor for me!

In a Vase

Autumn pickings....the Hydrangea Vanille Fraise now turning pink, a red Mustead Wood rose, and a few little extras.  I missed in a vase on Monday, though made this arrangement and photographed it outside on Sunday morning!

A nice purple salvia, name lost....

Astrantia with its lovely pincushion blooms.

In a Vase on Monday- Roses

May I post this and legitimately link it to Cathy's meme?  Today she is putting her feet up after opening her garden, and has posted about this.

The Vase is a jug, the flowers are in it, but I took them for a friend.  Well when I say a friend, Helen was my teacher for a few weeks, and at several workshops:  mixed media painting, mosaic and buttons.  I am posting on Monday!

Mr S and I had walked down to Helen's  launch night for Open Studios a week or so ago.  We had spied a lovely love token which we wanted to have to mark our anniversary, and which will have pride of place.  I made a beeline, and made sure a little red sticker was added, and left the piece for others to admire, and I do believe that Helen received several commissions because of this.

Saturday saw torrential rain storms, and I had promised to collect the piece then.  In between the torrents, I ran into the garden and picked these blooms, dethorned the roses and made a hand tied posy.  Both of us are suffering from hayfever at the moment, which has meant few flowers in the house.  I have so missed joining in with Kath's meme, that I thought  I would take these roses for Helen, but first photograph them for my vase this week.

Princess Ann, Gertrude Jekyll and Munstead Wood Roses, with a little alchemilla mollis, leaves from my pot grown Hosta which this year is without holes as I put some copper tape round the neck of the pot, and some Valarian

In a Vase on Monday - Myrtles and Hellebores

When I cleared away the vase of spent flowers yesterday, the mantle shelf looked a little bare but the little wooden lidded bowl I received from Mr S for Christmas stood out.  It is a 'vintage' bowl from Coos Bay Oregon, made from Myrtle Wood.  It is quite small but with lovely colouration from very dark almost black to pale golden cream.  When I received it and saw the classic label, I was delighted..Mr S had not realised that during the previous couple of years I had collected various 'myrtle type' shrubs for the garden.  Of course my myrtles come from various parts of the World.

I've been looking from the kitchen window towards the end of the garden for nearly a couple of months at the large clump of Hellebore flowers.  The individual flowers are beautiful.

It is very early of course this year, and in previous years this plant had won prizes at the gardening club for twelve stems of spring flowers in April.  I'm not sure what will be left in good enough condition, so decided to cut a few for this week's vase.

To go with them I cut stems from these myrtles: Myrtle Luma Apiculata Glauleam Gold, Lophomyrtus ralphii Little Star which has lovely little pink, cream and green leaves, Lophomyrtus ralphii Black Pearl, and Ugni Molinae Flambeau.  All of these are growing in pots, which I bring close to the house as I am not sure that they are very tolerant of hard frosts.

The sticky buds are unfurling in the sunny conservatory,

and having a lovely pot, but with drainage holes could not be called a vase.  I love ranunculas, and could help but come back from the market with three pots, and rather than cut the flowers, hope to have a succession of blooms over the next few weeks from the plants.

Simply by coincidence Cathy who hosts this meme has also posted about Hellebores.  Hers are quite marvelous and I love her description of the blooms...so do go there and she what she and others have posted this week.

In a Vase on Monday - Raindrops keep falling on my head

That sums up the weather this morning, and I have had to don mac and wellies and venture forth into the garden.  Since I now have three different michaelmas daisies in flower, they have have joined together for this raindrop covered vase.  Cathy who hosts this meme has used a 'song' theme for her vase this week.

Euonymus emerald and gold, some leaves of Hakonechloa Macra 'Albo Striata brought at the Shrewbury show last August, Lonicera nitida 'Baggesen's Gold,  Leaves of cyclamen and lime green heuchera, Aster amellus 'King George at 10 o'clock,

and at 5 o'clock, one blossom from Aster x frikartii 'Monch', and at 2 o'clock Aster Penny.  'Penny' was one of the first plants given to me by first new friend in Kenilworth, who came to the door to collect a phone system we were donating through Freecycle.  It is lovely that we keep up, and Penny visits now with little grandson.  About in the middle I have a stem of Eryngium (cultivar name lost). When gardening a few days later, I came across the plant label in another part of the garden: serendipity or what, as I was not looking for it at all.  It is Eryngium planum 'Tetra Petra'

Yesterday I spent the afternoon grubbing out, yes I got close down the soil and grubby, digging out the root of the purple leaved japanese maple which is slowly dying from a fungal disease, and had to dig up plants around to get the roots up.  One corm of cyclamen must have been the size of a dinner plate.  As I have some younger plants around I am wondering whether to ditch this corn into the bin or not. Maybe I shall plant it in the 'fernery' to bring a little colour there.

Last Monday hubby and I were on a daytrip to Eltham Palace and managed to get a peep into their Flower Room.  What a treat to have a special room for flower arranging.  I would have loved to see what they kept in the cupboards during the days when the Courtaulds  lived there.

They still use the flowers from the garden to make arrangement for the house, I think that house with fresh flowers become a  'home' to be lived in.

This may have galvanised me into collecting all my flower arranging things into one cupboard at least!