Wordless Wednesday ~ First Elderflower
Category: gardening
In A Vase On Monday ~ Autumn Trimmings
My regular blogging practice has gone by the wayside since the weather cooled. When it isn’t raining, I can be found in the garden, trimming plants, pulling out weeds, but rarely watering the garden. We have had plenty of rain lately and the garden is, if anything, over-watered.
Today I spent all day in the garden again, so took the opportunity while pruning to collect a few flowers to add to a vase for Cathy’s In a Vase on Monday.
One of my once blue flowering Hydrangea bushes has blooms at the moment which are speckled, and quite pink! I had to include these in today’s vase as they are so unusual.
An old faithful flower, the Gerberas, continues to flower, even through the rain and dropping temperatures. They really are the happiest flowers in my garden. 🙂
In the past, I have called these pretty white flowers “fluffballs”, but when I consulted the identifier app on my mobile phone I discovered they are officially called Spiraea cantoniensis ‘Double White May’, or May Bush for short, which is a much easier name to remember. I needed to trim the May Bush as the branches were growing over the driveway and hitting cars driving in and out.
And my lavender needed trimming as well – some of the branches are attempting to take over their neighbours in the garden.
Considering the plunging temperatures of late, I am surprised to see the amount of growth in the garden still. I keep expecting flowers to stop blooming and new greenery to stop growing, but the opposite is happening. I think the garden is enjoying the cooler days as much as I am. 🙂
Once again, thank you to Cathy for hosting In a Vase on Monday. 🙂
In A Vase On Monday ~ It’s all about the Roses! 🌹
When I went out into the garden this morning, I could see evidence of the seasons changing. The past week has been a tad cooler, especially overnight; it rained all weekend, but today has reverted back to summer weather.
Regardless of the warmer day, the roses in particular have decided it’s time to prepare to bid summer farewell. New growth has slowed, the rose bushes are less lush than they have been, and some seem to have given up producing new buds. Others, however, are putting on a final display before going dormant for a short period.
I still hold out hope for another vase or two of roses before winter arrives, but for today at least, my vases for Cathy’s regular Monday meme at Rambling in the Garden just had to be all about the roses, just in case the weather turns cooler again.
My David Austin rose bush, Olivia Rose Austin, has grown some beauties during the past week, as has my Roald Dahl. The star of the garden this week, however, is Desdemona. She has several clusters of both open blooms and tiny buds, so I chose several to bring indoors. Desdemona has only been in my garden since last spring, yet she already seems very happy and has continually flowered right throughout the hottest months of the year.
Sadly, because the heat has affected some of the rose blooms, the petals will begin to drop within a couple of days. At least I have plenty of photos to look back on during winter, when my rose bushes are bare.
The gerberas are still flowering, so I brought in all of the fully formed flowers to add to the pink vase. Last week, the gerberas reminded me of Happy Shining People – this week’s photo looks like Fireworks! ~~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAWuBSq8rLc
The pink roses vase is now in the formal lounge room at the front of the house. After gardening in the heat this morning, when I began to trim back a few leafless rose branches to get a head-start on winter pruning, it took a while for me to cool down again, even after several glasses of water and a shower. Once my body temp was back to normal, I enjoyed a cup of tea and read a chapter of a book while sitting beside the pink roses vase.
In another vase, I arranged the Roald Dahl roses with several stems on Society Garlic. They have such pretty flowers when clustered together in a vase.
And the Roald Dahl roses vase is in the main thoroughfare of the house. If I don’t have a vase of flowers on this stand nowadays, it feels like there’s something missing from the room!
My final, tiny vase, containing oddments of a Love Potion mauve rose and a couple of short stems of Roald Dahl and Lavender is beside my desk.
Just a side-note – even using WordPress Reader to comment, I am noticing some of my comments are still not showing up! So if you see that I have “liked” your post, please check your spam comments to see if that is where my comment has gone. This ongoing commenting issue is extremely frustrating, to say the least. I only follow blogs that I enjoy reading, so being unable to communicate with my blogging friends at random times has become quite disheartening. So if you don’t mind persevering and searching for my wayward comments, I am hopeful that the problem will rectify itself in time. Fingers and toes crossed!
Meanwhile, don’t forget to visit Cathy to admire her Monday vase post; her garden in the UK is breaking out in beautiful springtime blooms! 🙂
Help! Where are my comments going???
Since installing my new computer last week, some things have changed – and not for the better –
- I no longer receive notifications when blogging friends, who I follow, add a new post.
- When a new comment is left on my blog, I no longer receive notifications.
- Since yesterday, I can write a comment, submit a comment, but it doesn’t appear on the page.
- The only thing WordPress is allowing me to do is to leave a “like” on my friend’s pages.
To make this post less techie, even though I am asking for help, I am adding some photos along the way. The last photo in my In A Vase On Monday post yesterday showed a “through the window” shot of what’s going on in my front garden, just outside the front door. I took a few photos of the area last month, taken outside, so I will add them for interest sake. 🙂
So back to my dilemma – up to this morning, I wasn’t sure whether my issue is email or WordPress related. Today, however, I went directly to WordPress reader, tried leaving a comment, and yet again, it hasn’t published! My “likes” however, seem to be still working.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what could be happening?
Going back to my garden, the first photo shows the Tibouchina tree. The second photo shows the bird bath, which is often used, and an assortment of mostly potted plants, waiting for the heat to diminish so they can be planted in the ground. Some plants live here permanently, such as a Hydrangea, Dianthus, Gardenia, Daisies, and two potted Spathiphyllum, or Peace Lilies. The Spathiphyllum are happy enough indoors, but I find they flower nearly all year ’round when they live outdoors in the dappled shade under the Tibouchina tree.
The Spanish Moss – Grandfather’s Whiskers – also prefers a shady area. My mother gave me some Grandfather’s Whiskers over thirty years ago when we moved back north after living in Sydney for fifteen years, (she’s been gone now for thirty years,) and this piece is one I separated from the original “bunch” just last year. Already, it looks happy and healthy, strung over a branch of the Tibouchina.
This last photo shows my front veranda, which also shows how close the Tibouchina tree is to the house. Since taking this photo, we have trimmed the top off the tree, which we have to do regularly, to keep leaves out of the gutters – it drops leaves often, but new foliage grows back again just as fast! If you look towards the end of the veranda you will notice my bits and bobs of gardening tools, pots, etc. which I always have on standby. 🙂
So going back to my WordPress issue, does anyone have any suggestions? I am having no problem when leaving comments on Blogspot, so it has to be WordPress acting up for me. I am considering re-following blogs, to see if that helps. However, I noticed that I was able to leave a comment on one blog – Eliza’s – where the comment box looked as it usually does, just a plain box for a comment to be added. On all the other pages, where comments will not publish, the comment box has a bar along the top, as if to edit the comment as I write. It looks the same as when adding a new post on my own site. That isn’t normal – but how do I change it? I have searched Google for answers, without success.
Now I am hoping my people have more WordPress knowledge than I do! Help!
In A Vase On Monday ~ Yellow and Mauve
This morning, I had a plan. Having woken at 6:30am feeling much better than I did yesterday, I went straight outside, sprayed insect repellant on my arms and legs (does insect repellant exist in other countries, or is that an Australian thing?), and went out to pick some flowers for a vase for Cathy at Rambling in the Garden‘s weekly meme, In A Vase On Monday.
I beat those dratted mozzies – and the summer heat! Woo-hoo!
As usual, I dead-headed old flowers, pulled out any weeds I found, and collected an assortment of any pretty flowers I found. After breakfast, when I sorted through my collection, which awaited me in a plastic cup, I found I had enough flowers for two small vases. So I separated them by colour – yellows and mauves.
From the front windows of my house last week I had noticed plenty of colour on my miniature rose bushes. All three of these roses are from the same rose bush, aptly named ‘Chameleon”.
There are several different colours of Dianthus in bloom, but I only chose the white for this vase. Also, white alyssum adds a delicate touch and some greenery to the vase.
These tiny bell flowers, I believe, are called ‘Correa’, which is native to Australia. I know I have the name added to a photo from last year, somewhere, so I will edit the name if I am wrong. For now, I am going with Correa.
Update: Eliza noted in the comments that this plant is a Cuphea. I remembered where I had put the original label that came with the plant, and Eliza is spot on! This flower is in fact a Cuphea ‘Honeybells’. So thank you for the plant ID, Eliza. 🙂
And here’s a closer shot of the alyssum, just because I love seeing the detail of their tiny flowers!
This flower was a surprise find this morning. It is an Abelia ‘Francis Mason’, a new plant to me, which is planted in the new rockery garden opposite the house. I didn’t notice it was flowering until I went up into the rockery to pull out a weed I had noticed, and there it was, looking very pretty. I love the variegated foliage on this plant, which is what attracted me to the plant when I bought it last year.
And here is where the yellow flower vase will sit this week. 🙂
The mauve vase of flowers are arranged in a small vase that I had all but forgotten about until I saw it in my vase cupboard this morning, and it holds many treasured childhood memories. One of my sisters, who is thirteen years older than I am, loves gardening also. She may even be responsible for my early interest in gardening and flowers. When I was a child she would take me out into the garden to find flowers to bring indoors. We grew pansies, violets, fuchsias, snowdrops, poppies, all planted by Chris, who also cared for the garden when she lived at home. This vase is one we used to put some of our flowers into. There was an even smaller matching vase as well, but I think it must have been broken during one of my house moves in years gone by. As you can see, this vase has many imperfections, but it all adds to the character of the vase. For me, it’s the memories that count. ❤
In this vase I have two blooms of a miniature rose called ‘Love Potion’. The colour is more pink-ish than mauve, but I am happy with the combination of the flowers.
Beside a sprig of mauve coloured Alyssum is Society Garlic, which just keeps on flowering. Every week, I find more new blooms when I go to visit my roses. I have Society Garlic growing around most of my roses, as apparently the garlic odour is a deterrent to aphids.
This mauve flower is called ‘Mona Lavender’. You will notice actual Lavender in the vase next to it, which is a completely different type of plant. The word Lavender simply relates to the colour of the flowers. This plants is from the Plectranthus genus and will only grow in shade, or dappled, morning sunlight. It grows very well under my purple Tibouchina tree, which is right outside my front door.
Looking at the vase from another angle shows the detailed pattern on the Mona Lavender flowers behind two shades of Alyssum, along with my two Love Potion roses.
The flower adorned teddy ornament was a gift from my daughter when she was a child, and the pretty doily was made by my Mum, many years ago.
Now I am going to send my sister some photos of my mauve vase! She lives in Tasmania, many miles from where I live, so I don’t see her often. We often send each other gardening photos, so I am sure she will love to see my vase – and I hope she remembers it! ❤
In My World 