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In A Vase On Monday ~ Bird of Paradise

Joanne

This week for my contribution to Cathy’s In a Vase on Monday meme at Rambling in the Garden, I have limited my arrangement to three flowers, based on the potted Bird of Paradise that has decided to flower! It only flowers during summer, but not every year. I am sure the plant would flourish if planted in the ground, but I have heard that once in the ground, Bird of Paradise grow huge and are difficult to remove. So in the pot it will stay.

In previous weeks I have said that I don’t like mixing purple and orange flowers, yet somehow I manage to do so often. If the colours are light shades, it doesn’t “clash” as much. Yet having said that, I have seen arrangements of orange and purple flowers looking beautiful together. This week, however, I decided to stick with just orange flowers with green foliage.

Strangely enough, if you look closely at the Bird of Paradise, the have a thin strip of purplish colour with the orange. Regardless, orange is such a bold colour, so today, orange can be the star attraction.

It is fortuitous that during the same week my Bird of Paradise flowered, my Ixora ‘Prince of Orange’ is also in full bloom. I found plenty of long stemmed Ixora to cut for the vase today.

I have discovered that orange flowers en masse do not photograph as well as the more subtle colours I usually choose for my Monday vase! Or it could be the dull light in the house that is the issue. Today is the first day in around a week that it isn’t raining, but there are so many clouds that the sun is struggling to peek through.

Ahhhhhh, that’s more like it – a delicate spray of light coloured Lilly Pilly flowers. 🙂

This week I have been out and about more than usual. My area is overtaken by tourists for the summer holidays. I live just south of Queensland’s Gold Coast and just north of Byron Bay, which has become world renowned in recent years. Byron to me will always be a sleepy little beach village, yet since several of the “rich and famous” moved in, suddenly, everyone wants to go there! So during the six week summer school break, I tend to stay close to home.

One day during the week, I went shopping with my daughter. The shops have begun their Easter displays, and although I had no intention of buying anything, this vase jumped out at me and said “take me home!”. And when my daughter said she had found a dish that looked very “Mum-ish” – her word – I had to agree. And considering my choice of orange flowers for today’s vase, the colours blend beautifully with the bunny designs.

I know for certain that I will not limit the use of this vase to Easter alone. 🙂

In this last photo, once again the orange of the flowers doesn’t look as clear as it could – I think I will blame the dull day – but I wanted to add this photo for the background. I often mention the purple flowering Tibouchina tree just outside my front door: in this photo, the tree can be seen through the window. Hanging from a branch is Tillandsia usneoides – Spanish Moss, or as we call it, Grandfather’s Whiskers. To the right is a mozzie zapper, although those blood-thirsty pests haven’t been as active this past week, thank goodness. And just beyond the tree is the garden which featured in my Hill Project post recently.

Thank you for your dedicated weekly hosting of In a Vase on Monday, Cathy. 🙂

Published by Joanne

21 thoughts on “In A Vase On Monday ~ Bird of Paradise”

    1. Ixora are very easy to grow but they do like warmer climates; perhaps they’d do well as a conservatory plant too. They come in a few different colours, and I think more new colours are being developed as well, I keep seeing new Ixora’s appearing. 🙂

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  4. So pretty, a lovely vase, too, Joanne.
    FYI: If you use your computer’s photo editing software, you can alter ‘Shadow’ by increasing the light in shadowy parts of your photos. So you’d be able to have that last photo’s orange flowers more visible. I’m always fiddling with my photos! 😉

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    1. Thank you, Eliza, and for the info as well. I will have to play around with the shadows and see if I can improve the brightness. All I ever do these days is crop if necessary, and reduce the pixels for easier uploading into WordPress. If a photo looks too dark, I tend to not post it, lol. 🙂

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  5. That’s a lovely arrangement, Jo, and well suited to your new vase! Birds of paradise are common here but I haven’t warmed up to them until recently. The orange-flowered variety blooms on and off year-round in my area but, in contrast to your experience, the blooms are most prolific during what passes for winter here. They echo the Aloes currently in bloom too, which makes them all the more noticeable. My neighbor has “hedge” of the giant white bird of paradise (Strelitzia nicolai), which really are monsters, actively seeking to push down the fence between us on a regular basis.

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    1. Thank you, Kris. 🙂
      Going by your experience, it sounds like I am best off keeping my Bird of Paradise in a pot. I will need to replant them in a larger pot during winter though as they are growing quite big. I had this lovely image of a cluster of B of P growing beside the pool at one time! I will investigate whether the white version is available here – I had no idea they came in a variety of colours. 🙂

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    2. The white bird of paradise (S. nicolai) gets 4-5 times as large as the orange-flowered variety (S. reginae), Jo. Why my neighbor planted half a dozen of them against her fence is something I’ll never understand!

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      1. Oh, maybe I won’t look for them, in that case! Our previous neighbour planted bamboo along our adjoining fence line, even though we asked him not to. He’d just arrived from England and insisted it wouldn’t create a problem. It did, and we ended up having half of it in our yard! They sold (thank goodness) and the first thing our new neighbours did, without us asking, was get rid of the lot. We were so happy! Neighbours can be a pain, but at least we have great neighbours now. Good luck with yours! 🙂

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  6. Wow, that is pretty. I have grown to love orange. I moved a BOP this week and the roots are huge, like gigantic dahlia tubers. I have had very bad luck with BOP. I have Ixora as well and have not seen that variety, it must be a big shrub? I love your new vase and understand about the tourists – it is the tourist season here now.

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    1. I don’t mind the orange for a change, but I must admit that I really love more pastel shades of flowers in my vases. Although, come to think of it, I love rich red flowers! I have four Prince of Orange in the garden, which I love, and you are right, they are quite tall shrubs, close to two metres in height. I prune them back when flowering finishes. 🙂

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  7. That is a beautiful vase full of summery colours Joanne. Orange and purple is actually one of my favourite colour combinations and not as clashing as one might think. 😉 Your vase is delightful! Easter hasn’t arrived in the shops here yet, but I suspect when the carnival season ends tomorrow they will bring out the chocolate eggs etc. 🤪

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    1. Thank you, Cathy. 🙂
      We have had hot x buns on sale in the shops since Boxing Day here! The Easter eggs and decorations have only just started appearing, and I have to be strong to resist the temptation of buying too many decorations. 😉

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  8. Such pizazz! Oh this is a mood brightening display. The purple flowers outside are lovely as well. I love that your daughter picked out the little cups.

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