Hello, and welcome to my blog! May has been quite a funny month this year. Usually, May is a dependable month for sunny and warm weather in Ireland. This year, though, the weather has been cold and windy, although thankfully we haven’t had any frost and we still have had some sunny days. The other thing that went cold was my blogging. Sometimes, I just need to step away for a little bit. But I’m back now, and I have a ‘little’ flower arrangement to show you!

I say ‘little’ because it is actually rather tall. It reminds me of a rocket ship, actually. The great thing about flower arranging for yourself is that you can create anything you want and you don’t have to obey any rules. It’s sometimes good to use rules as a guide, but then again it is ok to just create what you want to create. And that is exactly what I did!

I only had three peony that were near enough to blooming, so that was my starting point. These peony actually grow near bluebells and I love the colors together. I discovered something new about my bluebells this year. I have two varieties! My early blooming ones were actually Spanish bluebells. They stand upright and have conical bell-shaped flowers with open tips, and although I didn’t notice, they would have blue pollen. The currently blooming bluebells have a distinctive ‘droop’ to their stem, narrow bell-shaped flowers with rolled back tips, and creamy white pollen. Apparently, the Spanish bluebells tend to overtake the native flowers, so I’m glad my natives are still doing well. I will try and separate them out at some stage.

So I had my three peony stems and a huge handful of bluebells to start things off. This actually changed my choice of vase as my original choice was now too small. Moving up a size in vase then pushed me to find something a bit bigger for the arrangement. We are fortunate enough to have a row of hawthorn trees lining one side of our property. They are in full bloom right now and they look spectacular! I decided to try working it into my arrangement. But hawthorn have *big* thorns, and aren’t that easy to work with, as it turns out. So while I think I would have preferred more lines in my arrangement, I simply had to work with what I had (a rocket ship type structure). 🙂

Never mind the rocket ship structure, it was created to fill an open space, placed high in my kitchen. I think the sizing was perfect for the location, providing that bit of color and freshness while being out of the way. I have to say that I enjoyed creating it and I was happy with the finished look. (And bonus: my husband complimented me on it, too.)

I do hope that our weather warms up and soon! I have squash, sunflowers and strawberries that are in desperate need of a whole lotta sunshine and warmth! Send your warm vibes this way, please!

In Peace,
Dana

A backdrop of hawthorn trees for the peony, native bluebells and hawthorn floral arrangement.

The peonies were at three different stages of opening, which is perfect for arrangements.

This is my favorite picture of all! A close up of the beautiful blooms!

I hadn’t realized what a good shot I had of the Spanish bluebells. You can see clearly how they stand tall, with open flowers.

While I like this picture, it is a little harder to see the droopy stems of the native bluebells. The rolled back tips of the open flowers are easy to see, though.

This is my peony in the garden with bluebells in the background. I love this combination.

Look at those hawthorn blooms with a perfect blue sky backdrop! I was actually looking up into this tree when I took the pictures, as below the tree is our compost heap and it isn’t very pretty!

And this is where the arrangement sits now. Although I didn’t manage to get a well lit picture from afar, you get the idea of the space and height. I think it fits in perfectly.

Thank you for stopping by!