In a Vase on Monday: Higgeldy-piggeldy

Although our temperatures came down a bit late last week, they were still on the toasty end of the spectrum, and they were accompanied by our famous Santa Ana winds, which caused more damage to my garden than the previous rounds of scorching heat had.  The 'Labyrinth' Dahlias I'd been so pleased to see the prior week snapped at its base.  Other plants just withered away, despite my efforts to keep them well hydrated.  But not everything in my cutting garden died.  I was able to cobble together another arrangement this week; however, I wasn't all that pleased with the final result.  Frankly, it looked better at the start when I stuffed the cut flowers into the jar I use when collecting them then it did after I "arranged" them in a proper vase, hence the title of this post.  If you're not familiar with the expression "higgeldy-piggeldy," it's an old term meaning an untidy arrangement.

I probably should've discarded the white dahlias I cut at the outset as they were already looking a little shabby but I couldn't bring to do that as they may be the last I'll get from the plant this season.  Oh well!  I expect they won't hold up long anyway and I can edit the arrangement as the week progresses.  In contrast to dahlias, zinnias have a much longer vase life

For some reason, ants were all over 2 of the 'Snowball' Dahlias, which I did toss out, but I didn't see any on the other 4 of those dahlias I cut.  Some were past their prime, though.

Back view: The 'Oklahoma White' Zinnias are at their peak now.  I may have overused them in this case.

Overhead view

Top row, the vase contains: Dahlia 'Snowball', D. 'Mikayla Miranda' and D. 'Table Dancer'
Middle row: noID pink Zinnia, Z. 'Benary's Giant Wine' and Z. 'Oklahoma White'
Bottom row: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' and Tanacetum parthenium 'Aureum' 

There still are lots of 'Break Out' and 'Omega' Dahlias that may provide joy in the coming week if the winds stop blowing by Tuesday as the forecast suggests and we get rain midweek.  My fingers are crossed both things happen.  The rain we had earlier amounted to less than a tenth of an inch, while the pending thunderstorms might provide more than half an inch.  Meanwhile, I plan to start pulling out some of the dahlias I don't intend to keep.  Two of those are the 'Admiral Rawlings' Dahlias.  They recently produced a flurry of flowers but their tall, limp stems continually topple over on the plants around them and can't hold up their heads so I don't intend to save those tubers for use next year.

I cut over half a dozen of these dahlias yesterday, leaving their stems short to better support their thin necks.  They're sitting on the kitchen island.

Check in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what she and other contributors to this meme have IAVOM this week.

The arrangement got pride of place in the front entryway even if it didn't deserve it

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