Still a little blooming in the garden on this longest night. The vase, thought you can’t see it, has some lovely floral etching. Expecting a hard frost, so I’m not sure what will be left next week.
52 Vases Week 14 Hellebores
A surprise in the garden, a blooming Hellabore (the green flower foreground and white in back of it) also known as Christmas Rose since this plant might bloom in December. Which obviously it has for me. Wintersweet (black berries) and variegated euonymous round out the arrangement. Small vase, about 4″ tall, an estate sale find years ago.
52 Vases Week 13: Branches
Monday was St. Barbara’s day and although I am not religious, I track the world’ holidays for their symbolism, intent and beauty. A custom for St. Barbara’s is to bring in branches of flowering trees and shrubs and “force” them, or put them in a warm environment to trick them into blooming. Like forcing narcissus, this tricks us as well, and reinforces our hope that spring follows winter and warmth and green will return to the earth.
This tall vase complements the leggy branches. I have plum, pear, and cherry in the mix here. In a few weeks, we’ll hopefully see what happens!
52 Vases Week 12: Persimmons again
This week with the rain and wind, I wondered what I would find to feature. The answer was in the kitchen – a bunch of persimmons ripening indoors. Now I realize I’m featuring garden persimmons quite a lot, but I’m coming into a major scrounge time of year in the garden. I feel lucky that the squirrels didn’t decimate the crop this year. And that the color is versatile enough to complement the faux copper patina of the vessel.
Hydrangea, rose hips, persimmon, twigs and branches, billy balls leftover from another arrangement.
Week 11: Thanks, giving
I have had this vessel for years. It looks like a squash, very organic. It makes a good container for the Thanksgiving holiday arrangement.
The finished product contains the “fruits” of the garden, the fruits of harvest. I’m grateful there’s enough still available that I can put together an appropriate table arrangement.
Rose hips, skimmia, hydrangea, roses!, gomphorcarpus psycocarpus (balloon milkweed aka hairy balls), and evergreen huckleberry, Chinese lantern.
Have a lovely Thanksgiving.
Demo Mumvember
I had the privilege once again of doing a floral demo at the Lan Su Garden. For this demonstration I used a theme of tablescapes and designed three that could be easily (I hope) translated to a home environment. I started doing some set up at home, so I would have less of that and more focus on arranging.
Easy peasy branches and a bit of pomegranate
Repurposed containers
Scape with bark and moss
There was a lot to transport to the Gardens but parking was free! due to it being Veterans Day.
A small container for the first tablescape
Mums for the first piece.
Arranging a taller piece in a cherry bark container
First tablescape is complete
Transitional winter arrangement.
Working on the final piece
3 pieces make up the last tablescape using the evergreens from photo 1
A handtie in shades of pink and purple
I ended the session using my remaining flowers to make small bouquets for attendees. It’s always lovely to give away flowers.
52 Vases: Week 9 Back to the Garden
Capturing the autumn colors.
The materials this week are all from the garden. Hydrangea heads, Autumn joy sedum, and branches of persimmon. Materials to be gathered are getting skimpier although we have not had a frost yet. When that happens the dahlias will be all gone.
I am also getting ready to do a demonstration this weekend at Lan Su Garden. Stay tuned for that.
Lan Su Chinese Garden Installation
Process and Product
Materials and structures in process
And end result
Repurposed as street art
52 Vases: Week 8, on the fly
I’ve been too preoccupied with getting my piece ready for the Lan Su Chinese Garden floral display, as a result the arrangement for this week features only a few garden or wild foraged items, the mums are from our local flower market where I purchased my supplies for the big arrangement. Look for a bonus post on that.
Love this vase in its soft rose quartz color. Surprising how it complements the flowers.
52 Vases: Week 7 – Plain vessels, stunning flowers
Although I’m determined to highlight seasonal flowers and foliage from my personal garden, I was in the Midwest for most of the week and needed to resort to purchased flowers as my mom doesn’t have much of a flower garden.
The sunflowers were from a local grocery store and greens picked from my mom’s yard and on a walk in the neighborhood. The weather in the Midwest is unnaturally warm, even the evenings. It’s a very strange combination of waning autumn light and early September temperatures. The flowers are fortunately seasonal at least.
The very cool oak leaf branch had its acorn hats still attached.
Back at home, I found these beauties still going strong in spite of two days of lashing rain. Although this isn’t a typical color combination for me, the complementary colors of yellow and purple pop against each other in a joyful way. Again a plain vessel lets the flowers take center stage.
Rooms in Bloom 