In a Vase on Monday: Starting Over

I walked through my garden yesterday with some clear ideas in mind as to what I'd use in a vase this week.  Once I cut a flower as a focal point, the rest of my choices usually fall into place.  If I come up short, I make another pass through the garden and, more often than not, I can find something to fill out an arrangement.  When I carry my glass jar of cuttings back to the house I'm generally satisfied that I'll be able to pull together what I've cut.  That didn't happen yesterday.  I pulled out another glass jar and tried again.  When I'd filled that with pieces of this and that, I still wasn't happy.  So I re-sorted everything into two completely different mixes and went back outside to cut a few things to fill in the blanks.  The result?  Three vases.

The original inspiration for vase #1 was Grevillea rosmarinifolia, which I'd planned to pair with the first Alstroemeria bloom I'd noticed earlier in the week.  But the Alstroemeria was past its prime and I lost my intended focal point.

In the end, I recycled a stem of pink Lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum) I'd had in a vase in my office as a new focal point and used Leucadendron 'Chief', which has pink and red flower-like bracts, to tie together the colors in the Lisianthus and the Grevillea.

Back view: I picked a paler pink Lisianthus to dress up the other side of the vase and used Narcissus to echo the yellow tones in the Leucadendron

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Eustoma grandiflorum (aka Lisianthus), Coleonema pulchelum 'Sunset Gold', noID Narcissus, Grevillea rosmariniflia, Leucadendron salignum 'Chief', and Penstemon mexicali 'Mini Red Bells'

Vase #2 was going to be constructed using the white snapdragons in my cutting garden which, despite my best efforts, are once again covered in rust and are therefore living on borrowed time.  Without a lot of thought I picked a nearby foxglove stem to go with the snaps but, to steal a phrase from Marie Kondo,  the pairing didn't "spark joy."  I gravitated away from white toward purple flowers but didn't find a focus until I cut some multi-colored Violas.

The purple, white and orange Violas led me to add the orange berries and Grevillea flowers to the mix

Back view: The purple Sweet Pea Bush (Polygala fruticosa) flowers look better in person than they do in these photos, where they appear more pink than purple

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: noID Viola, berries of Auranticarpa rhombifolium, Campanula poscharskyana, Grevillea 'Superb', Digitalis purpurea, and Polygala fruticosa (shown with Gomphena decumbens 'Itsy Bitsy')

The leftover snapdragons went into vase #3, along with a few other things I picked to tie them together with the yellow flowers I'd picked during my first pass through the garden.

The florescent yellow weed, Oxalis stricta, picked up the bright yellow touches in the white snapdragons

Back view: I used 2 species of yellow-flowered Euryops here as well and added a couple of blue notes to the mix

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Oxalis stricta, Antirrhinum majus, Salvia 'Mystic Spires', Rosmarinus 'Gold Dust', Euryops chrysanthemoides, and E. virgineus

For more IAVOM posts, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

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

Bloom Day - December 2016

Rain is virtually certain here today so I got out early this week to snap photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens.  By contrast to gardens in colder climates, I have quite a bit of floral color.  It's chilly here (low 60sF) but we don't generally get frost.  Sadly, we also haven't gotten much in the way of rain the past few years but, with each rainstorm, I remain hopeful that the tide will turn and, in the meantime, I collect every drop I can in rain barrels.

I'll start this Bloom Day report with the plants providing the biggest floral impact.

Bauhinia x blakeana (aka Hong Kong orchid tree) flourishes when the air is moister and the temperatures are cooler

Camellia williamsii (left), a hybrid of C. japonica, is just getting started, while the Camellia sasanquas are already beginning to wane

The flowers of Gomphrena decumbens 'Itsy Bitsy' (sold in some locations as 'Little Grapes') are small but plentiful

I suppose it's getting old but I can't help giving applause to the Grevilleas each month.  Grevillea 'Superb' (top) deserves its name.  Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' (bottom, left) also blooms almost continuously while G. 'Scarlet Sprite' (bottom, right) is a a winter bloomer.

Leptospermum scoparium 'Pink Pearl' produces sporadic blooms at intervals during the year but it goes to town during our cool season

Most of the ivy geraniums (Pelargonium peltatum) are blooming now.  'Pink Blizzard' (upper right) is another consistent bloomer.  'Caliente Coral' (lower left) is a cross between ivy and zonal geranium species.

Phylica pubescens (aka Featherhead) is doing very well in a pot.  I lost 2 I planted in the backyard border in late spring to the horrific start-of-summer heatwave.

Tagetes lemmonii (aka Copper Canyon Daisy) responded almost instantly to the greater sun exposure it's getting since we trimmed a nearby tree

Although Violas struggle with the dry conditions here, I love their cheerful faces and can't help but buy some plugs every year

There were a couple of surprises from plants producing out-of-season blooms.

A stray noID Agapanthus bloom turned up recently and Hemerocallis 'For Pete's Sake' has produced one flower scape since I moved 2 plants a month ago, signifying a preference for its new location perhaps

Small collections of flowers are scattered throughout the garden.  I rounded them up into a few color-specific collages.

Clockwise from the upper left, white and yellow blooms include: noID Narcissus, Achillea 'Moonshine', Alstroemeria 'Claire', Gaillardia aristata 'Gallo Peach', Gazania 'White Flame', and G. 'Yellow Flame' 

Orange and red blooms include: noID Antirrhinum majus, Aloe 'Johnson's Hybrid', Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun', red Gaillardia, Leonotis leonurus, and Papaver nudicaule

Pink blooms include, from the top left: Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink', Arctotis 'Pink Sugar', Argyranthemum frutescens, Cistus x skanbergii, Coleonema pulchellum 'Sunset Gold', Correa pulchella 'Pink Eyre', noID Dianthus, and noID Schlumbergera

Blue and purple blooms include, from the left: Polygala myrtifolia 'Mariposa', Erigeron glaucus 'Wayne Roderick', Felicia aethiopica, Hebe 'Grace Kelly', noID Lavandula, Limonium perezii, and Osteospermum '4D Violet Ice'

I'll end with what I suspect will be the last photos of the Eustoma grandiflorum (Lisianthus), which bloomed in large numbers from May through the present.  I don't expect a reappearance until spring but, who knows, they may surprise me.

Stray blooms of the pink and yellow varieties of Eustoma grandiflorum managed to survive until December's Bloom Day, a first even here!

Visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to discover what's blooming in other parts of the country and around the world.


All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

In a Vase on Monday: Going tiny

Pansies are the first flower I fell in love with as a child and although the conditions in Southern California aren't optimal for growing them, I inevitably cave in and buy some every year.  This year I at least held off until the summer-like temperatures that persisted through November finally gave way.  I planted plugs of a few varieties in December and, with regular rainwater, courtesy of my rain collection tanks, they're doing well so they were a natural choice for this week's "In a Vase on Monday," the meme hosted by Cathy of Rambling in a Garden.  Their short stems necessitated use of tiny vases.   Of course, going tiny, I couldn't stop at just one vase.

I created 3 coordinated, but not identical, vases 

The vases contain different foliage but the same 3 floral elements:

Viola x wittrockiana was used in all 3 vases - most are from a mix called 'Pandora's Box' but the third vase also includes a cream-colored viola.  In addition, each vase includes Gomphrena decumbens 'Itsy Bitsy' and flowers of a noID Narcissus growing in several areas of my backyard garden.

Here's a closer look at the individual vases, each of which manages to project a slightly different personality.

In addition to Violas, Narcissus and Gomphrena, this vase includes Pseuderanthemum atropupureum 'Texas Tri-star' and Coleonema pulchellum 'Sunset Gold'

The extra elements in the green vase are leatherleaf fern (Rumorha adiantiformis) and Abelia 'Confetti'

The only divergent element in the yellow vase is Erysimum linifolium 'Variegatum'

I couldn't find a good place to arrange all 3 vases as a group so they ended up in different spots.

The dining room table

The mantle in the master bedroom

And the desk in my home office

Last week's arrangement held up amazingly well, although the flowers of Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' are now starting the fall apart.  There are still lots of flowers on the shrub but I couldn't bear to cut any more.

Gratuitous photo of my beautiful Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream' in the front garden

Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to find what she and other gardeners have managed to put together from materials in their gardens this week.


All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party