Monday, August 10, 2015

It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind (In a Vase on Monday)

There are still flowers in my garden but nothing I haven't used in a vase at least once this year.  I cut some of just about everything I had in the warm color range and stuck it all in a vase.  It didn't look too bad but many of the flowers seemed to visually disappear, eclipsed by the dark red sunflowers from my vegetable garden.  I couldn't do that to my beautiful Grevillea so a second vase came out of the cabinet.

I kept the new vase fairly simple, allowing Grevillea 'Superb' to provide both the focal floral element and foliage.

Eustoma, added at the last minute to fill out the arrangement, tries to steal the show

In addition to Grevillea 'Superb' (top row), the vase includes (bottom row, left to right): Digiplexis 'Berry Canary', Eustoma (Lisianthus) 'Mariachi Pink' and assorted Zinnias


Everything else I cut stayed in the other vase, dominated by 3 of my deep red sunflowers.  Thus far, none of the Helianthus blooms have shown the wide color variation depicted on the seed packet.

Front view

Back view


I had breakfast with the sunflower vase sitting on the dining table.  It was okay but so similar to last week's vase that it bored me.  So, I went back into the garden and came back with some Abelia x grandiflora and began deconstructing my second vase.  I ended up with a very simple vase with just 2 elements.

Only the sunflowers and the Abelia x grandiflora went into the deconstructed arrangement


The leftover flowers remained in the yellow glass vase.

After everything shown in the first 2 vases was removed, the original vase was left with Achillea 'Summertime Pastels', Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Coreopsis 'Redshift', Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun', Jacobaeus maritima and Tanacetum parthenium


So 3 vases.  Again.  At least some things don't change.

The vase with the Grevillea sits on a side table in the living room

The simplified sunflower vase sits on the dining table

And the sunny flower vase sits on the table in the front entryway

Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what she and other gardeners have put together this week.


All material © 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

22 comments:

  1. Now I love that you changed your mind especially with the red sunflower vase...fabulous...and the Grevillea 'Superb' is aptly named and perfect in the vase Kris!

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    1. That Grevillea has been a wonder this year, Donna. It's blooming like crazy, which I hope bodes well for how my other Grevilleas will perform next year.

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  2. Oh, ah as I see each one...some lovely combinations, and well grown specimens.. I am quite green with envy over the Grevillea...

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    1. Our climate mimics that of Australia in some respects. The Grevilleas generally like it here anyway.

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  3. Lovely arrangements as usual! Grevillea Superb, nice colours, reminds me of ice cream somehow...

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  4. The red sunflowers are fabulous, Kris! All 3 vases are so elegant!

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    1. Thanks Anca. The red sunflowers seem to be more robust than the yellow ones - if only they'd offer some color variation!

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  5. I like that you chose to include the grevillea leaves for the foliage part of the arrangement. Creates a nice delicate backdrop for the flowers.

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    1. Those Grevillea leaves are gorgeous but hard to show off as I never cut long stems of Grevillea.

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  6. Beautiful vases. I love your choice this week

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  7. The deep rich colour of the sunflowers is fantastic with the Abelia, not something I would ever have thought of, well done! I think that is my favourite this week, but your others are lovely too; you still have a lot flowering in the garden; I have hardly anything in the actual garden so I am very grateful for the cuttings beds.

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    1. The bracts (at least I think that's what they are) as the base of the Abelia's flowers are a rusty reddish color that picks up the red of the sunflowers nicely. I think it's my favorite pairing with that sunflower thus far.

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  8. Somewhere out there somebody who used the same packet of assorted seeds you used is wondering why NONE of their sunflowers are that deep red as shown on the packet... At least that is how I imagine an ordered universe to function.

    All three vases are gorgeous but this week my heart was stolen by your brightest pinkest orangest grevillea LR vase. What a bright pop of wonderful that arrangement provides. I love it.

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    1. Right! I wondered that too - someone else is sitting at her dining room table looking at her sunflowers thinking "these are more pink than red."

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  9. The deep red sunflowers with the abelia... j'adore...! That was a fantastic rework, Kris :) And I love the sherbet effect in the first vase and the way the coreopsis combines with the gaillardia in the last one...!

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    1. The rework wasn't planned, Amy, but I did like the end result.

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  10. lovely vases! The colours in the first one seem to sing - so bright and zingy. Your home must be a very pleasurable place to be this week!

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    1. I've gotten used to having a few vases scattered about the house, Ann, but the pickings are getting slimmer by the day.

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