(Not) In a Vase on Monday: Thinking outside the vase

Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, our In a Vase on Monday host, is celebrating the fifth anniversary of this popular meme.  Last week she challenged participants to put together something not in a vase.  I've previously used pumpkins, driftwood and teapots to support arrangements so I tried harder to come up with something different, with mixed success.  My first arrangement doesn't deviate far from my norm.  I used an old basket, tucking in 2 jam jars to hold the contents that required water.

The berries and the guava fruit can survive without water but everything else requires it

I mixed 2 kinds of berries.  The larger ones start out looking like tiny pumpkins but soon dry out, turn brown, and open to display sticky seeds.

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Auranticarpa rhombifolium berries, noID guava fruit; Leucadendron 'Devil's Blush', Leucadendron 'Chief', Nandina domestica berries, Plectranthus scutellariodes 'Electric Lime' (coleus), and, in the middle, Rosa 'Joseph's Coat'

I also played around with a pair of concrete shoes my sister-in-law gave me years ago.

I'd planned to add flowers after planting the shoes with succulent cuttings (Aeonium arboreum and Crassula tetragona) but decided I preferred them just like this

My other idea started with the recognition that many of my bromeliads have vase-like structures to hold water.

This Nidularium wittrockia leopardinum illustrates the "storage tank" that collects water in many bromeliads

I use a bench surrounding our Magnolia tree in the front garden to display a variety of bromeliads and other potted plants.  On Sunday morning I filled the water tanks of 4 bromeliads with flowers.  In retrospect, I think the bromeliad arrangements would have been more attractive on their own rather than grouped together but I'd run out of time to fuss with them when I reached that conclusion.  As the nasty Santa Ana winds have started blowing again, it's not clear that these flowers will last long anyway.

This Aechmea fasciata (aka silver vase plant) holds stems of Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl' and Cuphea hybrid 'Starfire Pink'.  The larger pink flower stalk just visible behind the bromeliad's leaves is part of the plant itself.

Nidularium witttockia leopardinum made do with the feathery plumes of Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum'

Orange Aechmea blanchetiana was fitted out with Tagetes lemmonii, Abelia 'Kaleidoscope', Correa 'Ivory Bells, and Lantana 'Lucky White' 

This was my biggest flop.  This noID Aechmea (possibly A. orlandiana 'Rainbow') hosts Erigeon 'Wayne Roderick', Gomphrena 'Itsy Bitsy', Polygala fruticosa, and Osteospermum 'Violet Ice'.  It might have looked better without the busyness of the Gomphrena.

To see how other garden bloggers responded to Cathy's challenge, visit her at Rambling in the Garden.

Cathy's challenge was a nice distraction from the stresses of the past week.  First there was the tumult of the midterm elections; then a White House firing that raises concerns about where the political roller coaster is heading; then yet another mass shooting, this one close to home; and then wildfires.  The fires dredge up both apprehensions associated with living in a fire danger zone and memories linked to the 1993 fire that leveled my in-laws' home in Malibu.  We're some 50 miles from the nearest fire, currently burning unchecked in Malibu.  Thus far we've only had periodic whiffs of smoke; however, my brother and some friends in the West San Fernando Valley are uncomfortably close to the action.

My brother took this photo from a hill near his home on Friday night.    The last I heard, the so-called Woolsey Fire is only 10% contained.  (Photo used courtesy of Eric Peterson)

All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party