With my cutting garden effectively decommissioned, I had to search harder for materials to fill two vases this week. Luckily, fall's cooler weather prompts blooms from a few flowers.
Senna bicapsularis (aka winter cassia and moneybush) blooms reliably in late October. As much as I appreciate its cheerful blooms, its chief importance in my garden is that it serves as a host plant for cloudless sulphur butterflies.
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| I spiced up the Senna flowers by adding a few stems of Tagetes lemmonii (aka Copper Canyon daisy and Mexican marigold) and berries of Auranticapa rhombifolium |
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| Back view |
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| Top view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Auranticarpa rhombifolium, Corokia x virgata 'Sunsplash', Senna bicapsularis, Tagetes lemmonii, and my fall prop featuring 2 mice treating gourds as amusement park rides |
Barleria obtusa (aka bush violet) is also a fall bloomer. In contrast to the Senna which has stems that soar way above my head, the Barleria is more of a groundcover in my garden. It also flowers (and self-seeds) prolifically.
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| With the return of cooler temperatures, the Osteospermums are slowly coming back into bloom, joined here and there by Lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum) |
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| Back view |
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| Clockwise from the upper left: Barleria obtusa, Correa 'Ivory Bells', Eustoma grandiflorum, and Osteospermum 'Violet Ice' |
Rain is in the forecast this week. It's possible it could start as early as mid-day today and continue into Wednesday morning but Tuesday offers the strongest prospects. Southern California isn't expected to get anything close to a deluge but this round of showers may mitigate fire risk in the southern part of the state, as well as ending the fire season in the northern and central areas of the state. It's also possible that it'll deliver substantial snowfall to the Sierra Nevada mountains, an important source of water for the state.
For more IAVOM creations, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All
material © 2012-2022
by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
I like the effect of the added tagetes and the berries among the yellows. Lovely. The purples are all handsome. Barleria obtusa seems like a great flower. I'm always dreaming of finding ground covers like that.
ReplyDeleteThe Tagetes is usually more prolific at this time of year - I'm not sure why it's flowering so lightly but maybe the coming rain will help. I picked up a flower-less pot of Barleria obtusa at at a sale at my local botanic garden on a whim years ago and I'm so glad I did.
DeleteLovely autumnal colours in that first arrangement, and,of course, I always love purples!
ReplyDeleteBlue and purple flowers are my favorites in the garden, although not especially easy to find (at least on the scale I'd like to plant them).
DeleteIt is always a joy to view your arrangements, which show flowers which are so different to the ones we can grow.
ReplyDeleteI'm always envious of what I see growing in the UK, Noelle - and even in other areas of the US with climates very different than mine. While Chrysanthemums are sold here in the run-up to our Thanksgiving holiday, they're generally pretty sad.
DeleteWell done! I imagine your slim floral pickings is still quite bountiful by my standards. I hope the rain falls harder than expected!
ReplyDeleteWe got a tenth of an inch or rain overnight (earlier than expected) but there's been nothing since, which probably means I should get out of my office and into the garden to get more bulbs planted before more rain arrives.
DeleteWhat a warm and sunny vase your first one is, Kris. What are the orange berries - are these ripe senna pods? And it's a very pretty osteopspermum in the second vase - have we seen that one before in a vase? You usually have some from the 3D series, don't you?
ReplyDeleteThe orange berries are from a tree-like shrub Auranticarpa rhombifolium (once classified as a Pittosporum). They look like tiny pumpkins until they split open to expose sticky brown seeds, which are interesting in themselves. That Osteospermum is part of what's called the '4D' series, which I think is a term chosen by hybridizers to suggest an improvement on the original '3D' series. Both the 3D and 4D types are distinguished from the original single-petaled varieties by the fact that they remain open in low light. The singles close up in low light, which makes them less appealing for use in floral arrangements.
DeleteAll of your flowers are lovely...the yellows, the purples...beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteI love the mice
ReplyDeleteThey only come out occasionally but I like them too. If only I felt as fond of the living critters in my garden ;)
DeleteTwo beautiful and interesting vases as always Kris. True to form I'm pulled to the blues. I like your little mice figures having fun. I do hope that you get that much wanted rain.
ReplyDeleteWe got just 0.14/inch (3.56mm) of rain thus far but more is expected tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
DeleteLovely Chris. Mixing the bush violet and the Senna would be a lovely combination too. Glad you are getting some rain. Our world is white with over a foot of snow and lots more to come in the next couple of days. Not complaining (I don't have to shovel it (hubby's and son's job)) as we were so dry going into the Fall this will provide lots of moisture. Am enjoying the first of my hippeastrum blooms indoors.
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm impressed you have Hippeastrum blooms already, Elaine! That sounds like a lot of snow to me but I can appreciate the relief in getting precipitation in any form after a long dry period.
DeleteGorgeous, just gorgeous. And the two arrangements are in complimentary colors with each other. Eye candy! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks Beth!
DeleteEven though you decommissioned your cutting garden, I knew you'd still have an abundance of garden blooms to share, Kris. Love the gorgeous buttery yellow of the Senna. We have native varieties of Senna here too- we saw some growing in the wild on our holiday recently. I didn't realise there were South American Senna species also. Do you think the cloudless sulphurs are attracted to this plant as the flowers look like little yellow butterflies?
ReplyDeleteI can't explain what attracts the butterflies to Senna bicapsularis but it's clearly an important plant for them. There are always more of these butterflies in my garden when the plant's blooming. The caterpillars are well-camouflaged, turning green when they eat the plant's leaves and yellow when they eat the flowers. The butterflies are also harder to detect on the plant because the color of their wings and the flowers are similar.
DeleteGenerally the attraction to certain host plants is due to olfaction, they like the way the plant smells. Butterflies sense botanical chemicals as a survival mechanism. They detect the nutritional value of the plant. It’s also often a co-evolutionary process. For Phoebis sennae there’s a color adaptation for the purposes of camouflaging in larval stage. The caterpillars that eat green leaves are green and those that eat the yellow flowers are predominately yellow.
DeleteThanks for adding your input, Eric.
DeleteCamouflaging > you said that, my bad. I didn't read your entire reply.
DeleteTwo very pretty vases. What a lot of colour in your garden still. The mice made me laugh. Thanks for sharing. It’s karen from bramblegarden.com although it says anonymous, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog, Karen. Blogger changed its protocols for identifying commentators so a lot of people are ending up as "anonymous" unless they identify themselves in their comments as you did. I had similar problems with Wordpress and had to open a Wordpress account in order to comment on sites it supports. Why these servers can't work things out between themselves is beyond me.
DeleteShift in season, shift in bouquet contents. The saturated color of the Osteospermum and Eustoma are yummy.
ReplyDeleteMay your tanks, reservoirs, barrels, buckets, tubs, watering cans, measuring cups, mixing bowls be overflowing with this glorious rain. May your garden soil be soggy for days to come. Enjoy!
So far, we've had half an inch of rain from the current storm system, HB. My rain barrels are all full, although my husband drained the water in "his" spa into my 265-gallon tank last month so I mostly have him to thank for filling that one. After a damp morning, it's sunny and we've got some blue sky now but Weather Underground is still projecting another blip of rain mid-afternoon. Every drop is appreciated! I hope you're doing well too.
DeleteLove the hints of orange in the first vase, especially the berries. And in the second lovely to see the Eustoma again. Hope you got that rain Kris!
ReplyDeleteWe've had 2 days of light rain, Cathy. It's definitely not a drought-buster but every drop is appreciated :)
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