In a Vase on Monday: Sun, Blue Sky & Fluffy White Clouds

We got a teeny tiny amount of rain Saturday night and awoke on Sunday (late due to the start of Daylight Savings Time) to clear blue skies, scrubbed clean of their usual dingy brown layer of smog, a few lingering fluffy white clouds, and bright sunlight.

View looking southeast at the Port of Los Angeles from our back door after we received 0.06/inch of rain overnight.  If you look closely at the left side of the shot you can see the Royal Princess cruise ship sitting in port, probably being scrubbed from stem to stern.  It pulled out past Angel's Gate headed to Mexico just after 5:30pm yesterday.  I belatedly learned that the cruise was cancelled due to a link to the Grand Princess.  The Royal Princess sailed out of port but I'm not sure where it went.

View from our back patio looking northeast.  The Port is disturbingly quiet at the moment as the volume of transport ships has dropped dramatically over the past few weeks.

The sunny scene inspired the contents for my first vase.

Although the blue tips of the Dutch Iris are just beginning to emerge, none were ready to be cut yet so I sought out other flowers in shades of true blue, including the first flowering stem of Portuguese squill (Scilla peruviana) for the front of the vase

and Pericallis, Salvia, lavender and Aristea inaequalis, a South African Iris relative, for the back

Top view: Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) and Freesias provided the yellow notes and marguerite daisies (Argyranthemum frutescens) provided fresh white

Clockwise from the upper left: Argyranthemum frutescens, Aristea inaequalis, Freesia, Lavandula multifida, Pericallis, Phlomis fruticosa, Salvia 'Mystic Spires' and, in the middle, Scilla peruviana

My second vase is very different in terms of color and contains a mix I'm fairly certain I've used before; however, it shares a connection to the first arrangement in that both vases provide examples of nyctinasty.  Nyctinasty describes the natural phenomenon which causes leaves and/or flowers of certain plants to close in response to diminished light levels.  Interesting as that is, it's a bit irritating when it comes to creating flower arrangements.  I usually avoid using flowers with this characteristic but I'd utterly forgotten that the South African Iris relative, Aristea inaequalis, did that when I cut two stems for my first vase.  I remembered it when I found myself struggling to find open flowers to photograph.  In the case of the second vase, it wasn't the flowers that presented an issue but rather the foliage.  

The new red-tinged foliage of the pink powder puff bush (Calliandra haematocephala) folds when the light level is reduced, although the flowers and mature foliage are unaffected

The powder puff flowers don't last long in a vase.  I included a few flowers still tightly in bud to help dress up the back of the vase.

Top view

From left to right: Calliandra haematocephala, Freesia, and Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola'

Finally, as I've grown accustomed to eating breakfast with flowers on the kitchen island, I cut a few florets from the florescent yellow bloom stalks of the succulent Aeonium arboreum to fill a small cactus-shaped vase.  Much as I love flowers, I'm not particularly fond of these flower stalks, which give the succulents a misshapen appearance.  In February, I had a dozen or more of them and, as new ones continue to appear, I've started cutting the older, scruffier stalks down so I decided to use a few of the florets before they all end up in our green waste bin.

Aeonium arboreum bloom stalk in garden and individual florets in the cactus vase

For more In a Vase on Monday creations, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party