Hello! Welcome to my blog. I created another flower arrangement, and this one is filled with summer blooms! I was under some time pressure when I made it (flower arranging wasn’t on my ‘to-do’ list that day, but I squeezed it in), and it’s quite possible that the time pressure pushes me creatively. Because once I finished, that was it and I didn’t want to change it. 🙂
The sunflowers are still blooming. They are one of my favorite annual flowers to have in a summer garden. A flower that I didn’t think I’d see this summer has proven me wrong. My clematis has bloomed. This poor plant gets way more wind that it would prefer. But I love the color and it is a fun addition to flower arrangements.
4 – Sunflowers. The top two pictures are of the same plant, focusing on a different flower in each. That plant is in the Rainbow garden, and wasn’t planted by me. I presume it is from my compost. The other two pictures are from the sunflower bed.
5 – Clematis ‘Elegans’. Isn’t that a great color? This flower doesn’t look too beat-up by the wind. I’m sure my plants would prefer that I create a big sheltered area for them!
6 – Incrediball hydrangea and hydrangea ‘Vanille Fraise’ Paniculata ‘Renhy’ at sunset. These are the most blooms I have seen yet with these two hydrangeas. The difference this year is that I have been keeping them well hydrated. They are much happier that way.
And that’s my six (or there-about). Have I inspired you to create your own flower arrangement, yet? It’s easy and fun! I’d love to see what you create, too. 🙂
Hey there! Thanks for visiting my blog. The garden is filled with lots of color, so I thought I’d take advantage of that and create a floral arrangement. Creating an arrangement is fun to do! It is great to be able to wander about the garden, gathering flowers and then being able to create something with them – the more unconventional, the better. That is what motivates me to plant lots of different textures, colors, and shapes in the garden! Speaking of lots of color, my container garden is really starting to shine, too. I bought a bunch of new plants this year and when you put them all together, there is a wonderful impact! I’m joining The Propagator’s ‘Six on Saturday’ meme, so you can read all about it in my ‘six’ below.
There isn’t really a front or back on this arrangement!One side has more sunflower fronts, the other side has sunflower backs – which I find to be equally as pretty!
1 – Summer floral arrangement. Who doesn’t love having flowers in a vase? I know it is wonderful to have them in the garden, but it is also nice to bring them inside. This one has: sunflowers (Claret F1), Japanese Anemone, Helenium Moerheim Beauty, globe artichokes, David Austin roses (Boscobel), and Leycesteria formosa – also known as Himalayan honeysuckle or pheasant berry. It is a very summery arrangement, full of color. It is much different than any arrangement that I made last year, which I’m happy about – change is good! I used two ‘frogs’ on the bottom of the vase to pin the stems in place, and then, since I didn’t secure the frogs down, I used glass marbles to keep down the stems after pinning them in the frogs. The good news is that the flowers aren’t moving anywhere. 🙂
I hadn’t realized how tall these Japanese anemones were until I cut them!Here’s the bed where I cut the Japanese anemone from. They will spread everywhere if you let them! They pair well with my clematis, too.
2 – Japanese anemone. I’m including this pretty, yet subdued flower, because it is a lovely addition to the garden as well as the arrangement. They have long stems with multiple flowers on them. But be warned, they will spread everywhere if you let them! They bloom mid to late summer, which I like as I don’t have enough plants that bloom then. 🙂
My container garden on my back deck.
3 – My container garden. Lots of plants here! I potted up many more plants this year than usual. I’d say Covid had something to do with it! I already mentioned the lilies last week. So this week I’m adding two gladiolas:
This stem of Rose Supreme broke on one of our very windy days. That’s a great excuse to bring it inside!
4 – Gladiolus Rose Supreme. This gladiola was part of a medley of flowers planted together in 2014. This year I finally took everything out of the original container and planted out three containers from all of the bulbs! There were quite a few lilies that bloomed earlier in the summer, and now the gladiolas are starting to bloom. I’m so glad I separated them all, as I didn’t have nearly as many flowers when they were all in one pot (I’m sure they weren’t happy there for a few years).
This Pink Parrot is very similar to the Rose Supreme, I tend to gravitate towards pink!
5 – Gladiolus Pink Parrot. This is a new purchase this year, and an experiment in that I planted all 30 bulbs into the one (big) pot. It has only just started to bloom, so I’ll have to wait and see if it is worth planting them all together.
6 – Pumpkin arch update (with pictures of pumpkins this time). I don’t think we’ve made any progress up the arch this week. I guess this means I need to plant them out earlier next year. I’ll plan to do that and then cover them with fleece if the weather isn’t warm enough (it definitely wasn’t warm enough this year). There are still pumpkin and squash flowers, with a couple of new fruit started. But I’m not sure if those fruit will fully develop. I’ve had a bunch of pumpkins and squash not form completely this week, and just fall off the vines. I’m not sure why, actually, but thinking it is just the end of their season.
Here’s a good example of what I was just mentioning: the small green pumpkin in the picture above dropped off of the vine right after I took this picture (you can see it is kind of yellow on the bottom). These three Red Kuri squash are doing really well, though. You can see they’ve turned from yellow to orange.
This picture shows a small pumpkin hanging from the side of the arch, while a Red Kuri squash hangs further along the arch. It has already started turning oragne, too.
And here are two more (green for the moment) pumpkins hanging from the side of the arch. I like having them vertical instead of on the ground, even if they didn’t quite make it over the arch!
The back of the arch and sunflower bed don’t get nearly enough attention! The sunflowers and squash are a great addition to the garden. Every morning, I take a walk about the garden, spending most of my time right here. I find it to be peaceful and it simply brings me joy.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my tour this week! Thanks for stopping by!
Hello there! We have enjoyed some absolutely beautiful summer days recently. I definitely get more accomplished on sunny days! (Is that the same for you, too?) I hope you have also had good weather, wherever you are in the world. As you may know, I love flowers. I always have in mind, when I’m planting flowers, if I can use them again – either in a live or dried flower arrangement. Last week I had a free morning on a beautiful sunny day and I decided to make a flower arrangement. I should add that just a few months ago I bought myself a book on flower arranging. It is called Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers, by Erin Benzakein. It is filled with 300 pages all about ‘designing gorgeous arrangements for every season’ and complemented with the most beautiful pictures. It is a fantastic resource for learning everything you need to know about flowers, foliage, containers, flower care and of course, design. The premise is to use as many local flowers as possible, incorporating items that might not have typically been considered for arrangements. Something else that I liked seeing and learning about was creating a loose and airy look. I found it to be the motivation I needed to try something different.
I did not have a visual of the arrangement in my head before I started. I walked through the garden with my clippers and just clipped anything that I thought might work. I noted that in the book, Erin had used clematis, which were lovely additions to arrangements. That is not a plant I would have thought would be usable for arrangements! It’s great to learn new things. 🙂
Post arrangement, I found that my Japanese anemone did not fare well. I possibly should have tried a special method for their hydration (which I would do next time). Also, an obvious note was that the roses that looked ‘perfect’ when picked, were fasted to drop. My David Austin roses tend to have short stems, so I was more concerned with finding flowers with longer stems than with their maturity. But other than that, the flowers all did really well for the week. I was super lazy and didn’t even add water to the container (O.K., so I probably shouldn’t admit that).
As for the container, I’ve had that little gem for nearly 20 years. It was a gifted flower arrangement (I save everything). I think this is definitely my favorite thing I’ve done with it, though! It just seemed to all fit together nicely.
I hope you like my arrangement! I’d love it if you would please leave me a comment below, telling me which is your favorite flower, or if you enjoy flower arranging, or just say hello!
Thanks so much!
In Peace, Dana
The container has two frogs in the bottom, which I used to secure the roses in place. This probably isn’t recommended, but I also used glass marbles to help to hold the rest of the flowers in place – that’s called ‘making due with what I have’! Most of the roses are David Austin roses, although I still have one rose plant that is not a David Austin rose, and I did use one of those roses.
Above is a closer look at the ceramic container. Also, just a couple highlights of the flowers: the Leycesteria formosa – also known as Himalayan honeysuckle or pheasant berry, is a hanging burgundy color flower with berries and green leaves – it also sometimes has white flowers. The tall yellow flower is fennel. I used it to tie in the yellow centers from the pink Japanese anemone. The spiky purple flower is Russian sage – Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’, which also dries really well.
The only other flower to highlight is the clematis, Purpurea Plena Elegans, which is also a burgundy color.
A close up of what I consider the front of the arrangement.Full view of what I consider the back of the arrangement.Full view of the front of the arrangement (with ornamental grass behind it).Well I had to bring it inside at some stage!
I loved every minute of creating this arrangement! I have to say that I was happy with my end result, even though at the back of my mind I know there were some techniques that might have been ignored. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! 🙂 Take care!
Hello!  I am having a bit of fun with making videos.  This one starts with an opening shot of what we call our Christmas tree (Abieskoreana) [sideways, I might add] and me saying “Hi, this is mom in the garden” … I actually laugh after saying that, realizing that it seems like I am the tree.  Please smile with me!  I’m still learning 🙂
Flower bed with Japanese anemone
In the picture above you can’t even see the new bed as it looks to be all grass!  I managed to get about half of it cleared tonight (after my video).  It was pretty dark when I finished!  But I’m so excited to get the bed ready.  My goal is to get roses in there this winter.
a slightly different view
I was in the garden the past two nights and both times I was treated to the most amazing sunsets. Â The only downside was that the way I was weeding had my back to the sun so I had to keep stopping to enjoy the show!
Another glorious sunset
I snapped this picture this morning. Still more to do, but huge progress has been made!
The video is just a quick hello and a short visit around the garden. Â I hope you like it!
At least once a week I now look forward to collecting flowers from the garden and bringing them inside for us to enjoy in our kitchen. Â I rarely did this before, because really I love seeing them outside. Â But being a part of the Rambling in the Garden’s meme “In a Vase on Monday” has brought about my new weekly activity (read: obsession)!
Japanese Anemone
My ten year old daughter helped me this time. Â It would have been quite a collection of colours if I’d picked all the flowers she wanted! Â But she was happy enough, instead, to hold the flowers, in a hand held bouquet as we walked through the yard and cut the flowers which I picked out (with her approval, of course).
Potentilla (yellow flower)
I wish I could say that I had it all planned out in my head beforehand. That was not the case, though. It all started with a large sedum flower with a broken stem. Â It would be such a shame to leave that in the garden to die. Â So pink became the main colour.
Potentilla with Japanese Anemone (some without their petals)
My potentilla plant has the sweetest yellow flowers. Â I had to have that colour in the arrangement! Â I also loved the strange shapes of the Japanese Anemone. Â They are so interesting looking before they even bloom as well as well after they bloom!
Mallow in front with some lady’s mantle to the right (underneath the Sedum)
My mallow plant grew quite tall this summer and was blown over and badly broken. I thought that was the end of it, at least for this season.  But we cut it down to a lower level and sure enough, it is full of all new flowers!  I have not been able to really capture the beautiful colour that it is.  The light, bright green of the lady’s mantle is one of my favourite colours! It is popping up in all sorts of places around the yard!  So I was happy to find some that was still young enough to use.
“wild white plant” in the garden
These lovely white flowers are in my “wild flower garden”. Â I don’t know their name, but I’d really like to find out because they are so pretty.
Everything arranged and sitting pretty
It all came together fairly quickly and easily. You don’t usually have too much time when a child is involved, anyway! The original vase I was using just wasn’t working for me. Â I had too many flowers for it. Â So out came this rather large, glass ice container (or white wine cooler/champagne cooler). Â I have the marbles on the bottom, as a lot of my stems were too short.
In a Vase on Monday: A Playful gathering of flowers
I really like starting my week like this!  I hope you do, too.  Stop on over to Rambling in the Garden if you’d like to see some other lovely “In a Vase on Monday” posts! http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com
I think I’m getting the hang of this Wordless Wednesday thing. Here are just a few pictures which I think have a magical look to them simply because of the evening sunlight.
Marigolds
The flowers are not spectacular, really, but I think they look spectacular in this light.
Japanese Anemone
Silver Anniversary Hybrid Tea Rose
And then my favorite … I captured a picture of a Speckled Wood Butterfly on my Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan). This was the picture that inspired me to post on my blog tonight.
Mom in the Garden 