There were times this morning when I thought I may have to forego my contribution to Cathy’s In A Vase On Monday this week. We have had several days of rain, and I know from past experience that with the amount of rain we’ve had, flowers need time to dry out. They look rather droopy and frazzled otherwise.
This is the scene I was met with when I reached the pink Gerberas. With heads laden with raindrops and drooping towards the ground, they otherwise looked okay … ish! I thought I’d pick them all, and see how they faired when taken inside the house and left to dry out for the day.
A very lovely Jude the Obscure rose tempted me; however, with that amount of water on her petals, I know that Jude would not be any happier indoors.
Likewise, Desdemona appears fresh and beautiful now the weather has cooled slightly, but she needs to dry before she can visit a vase indoors.
By later this afternoon, the Gerberas were beginning to dry off. Their petals are not as perfect as I have seen them in the past, but given their appearance this morning, they look much happier now.
Even the back off the Gerbera flowers are rather attractive!
Today, I gained a new appreciation for IAVOM contributors who manage to arrange a single species of flowers in a vase successfully. Who knew how difficult it would be!
When the pink Gerberas flopped to the side of the “vases” I knew I needed more flowers to hold them in place, so dashed outside again to grab a few red flowers.
A great advantage of Gerberas, however, is how photogenic these beauties are, when photographed individually. ❤
So my contribution this week to In a Vase on Monday, albeit late in the day – and using imperfect flowers – was once again an enjoyable challenge! 🙂
Autumn has arrived! However, the daytime weather seems to have not read the memo yet, and the humid, damp days continue. Nights are cooler though, which continues to affect the garden: the Frangipani tree branches look barer with each passing day and the rose bushes continue to lose foliage without much regrowth at all.
I started to collect a few stems from the garden as my contribution to Cathy’s In a Vase on Monday post yesterday, between showers of rain. The Verbena Polaris continues to bloom and is looking healthier now than it has all summer.
The Verbena Polaris is in flying form!
There is so much new growth on my Camellia shrub that I needed to trim a few branches which were beginning to encroach on a walkway … and kept a few for my vase. I also noticed buds beginning to form, so took care not to take any of those branches. The foliage is beautiful and glossy, but you will notice the telltale signs of insect nibbles and heat scorch on the leaves. Hopefully, this will end as the weather cools.
Bud-free Camellia branches.
When I was hunted back indoors by a downpour of rain, I left the cuttings in a container of water on the kitchen bench. By the time rain – which developed into a storm – had stopped, the garden was in darkness.
This morning I cut a few stems of a Tibouchina shrub called ‘Peace Baby’. Every year after flowering finishes I cut the shrub back hard. It begins growing again almost immediately, which shows the hardiness of the plant.
Tibouchina ‘Peace Baby’.
I knew I had a rose bush in bloom that I haven’t brought in for a vase before. I think I have mentioned before that the blooms don’t last long in the summer heat, so there was only one stem suitable to bring indoors. It is slightly affected by heat, but has two pink buds beside the open flower. The buds probably won’t open, but they look very pretty just as they are.
A new David Austin rose to share ~ ‘Heritage’.
When I added the David Austin ‘Heritage’ rose to my vase, it crossed my mind that I should follow Cathy’s example by adding a prop to give meaning to the vase. My own heritage, although I was born in Australia, is English, but I don’t have a Union Jack to display. Hmm, what would tie into my British heritage, I wondered?
David Austin ‘Desdemona’.
Although I hadn’t planned on adding any Desdemona roses, there she was, as usual, waving her beautiful white blooms at me! It would have been rude not to bring her indoors too. 😉
The vase needed a little “something else”, so back outside I went and picked all the pink Gerberas I had in the garden. These are all new blooms since last week, which shows have fast they flower.
Happy Gerberas.
When I placed the vase where it will be on display in the family room this week and took a photo, I didn’t realise that I had inadvertently discovered a prop for my English heritage, albeit a sad mention … let me explain.
The first In a Vase on Monday contribution for autumn in Australia.
As you can see, I have turned the page of the calendar, which now shows the month of March – the first official month of autumn here in Australia. Usually, I would have cropped out the top shelf of the stand, which contains some of my recipe books, but look closely … there lies my heritage.
The world heard the sad news last week of the passing of Dave Myers, one half of the cooking duo The Hairy Bikers. I always enjoy watching Dave, along with Simon King, joking their way through the dishes they cook during their biking journeys. And both Dave and Si are from England, specifically the north of England, which is where my heritage lies. I will continue to enjoy watching reruns of episodes from The Hairy Bikers – the food they make, and their strong northern accents reminds me of my parents, who arrived in Australia with my three sisters several years before I was born. ❤
A tiny vase for my office.
Not wishing to end on such a sad note, I will now share the tiny vase of flowers I picked to sit beside my desk in my office. You will notice in the photo above, just one tiny Brachyscome ‘Mauve Bliss’. There are three in the vase, but the others are lost beneath the Gazanias!
Miniature peach rose.
To add context to the size of the flowers, the vase is only 6.5cm. tall, and the roses are miniatures. The peachy coloured rose bush has the most flowers in bloom just now and I really love this gentle shade of peachy colour.
Deep violet-purple ‘Love Potion’.
When I dead-headed the Love Potion rose, I found there was only one flower suitable for a vase this week.
Purple Salvia.
And the purple Salvia adds a touch of background interest.
At home in my office, for me to enjoy while working. 🙂
So they are my two vases for this first week of autumn’s contribution to In a Vase on Monday. Don’t forget to visit Cathy, and other Monday vase contributors during this week to admire the new flowers that are springing out of the ground and adorning branches in the Northern Hemisphere. 🙂
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.
Olivia Rose Austin
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.
Another, more fully opened Olivia Rose Austin
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.
Pale yellow Roald Dahl, named for the author.
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.
I wonder if these Roald Dahl rose buds will open, now they are indoors?Desdemona has become the unexpected ‘star’ rose of this summer’s garden.
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.
Dainty Society Garlic flowers.
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!
Roald Dahl roses with Society Garlic flowers for contrast.
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.
A small collection of flowers to brighten up my office.
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! 🙂
When I went into the garden this morning at 8:30 am to choose flowers for my contribution to Cathy’s meme In a Vase on Monday at Rambling in the Garden, I didn’t have any plan other than to pick roses and hydrangeas.
Armed with only secateurs and a plastic container of water to put the cut flowers in, I went straight to the main rose garden, dead-headed the old roses, and chose the best of what was available of the Olivia Rose Austin and Desdemona – both David Austin roses – and one lonely red rosebud whose name I cannot remember.
Desdemona at the front, and pale pink Olivia Rose behind. The lonely red rosebud is now among friends.Beautiful pale pink Olivia.
As usual, a random weed here and there distracted me, so they had to be pulled out. The gerberas have consistently flowered since … when? Late winter, perhaps. The more I dead-head the gerberas, the healthier the new flowers look, and currently, apart from being a tad bedraggled by the overnight rain, they look beautiful.
Gerberas always remind me of Shining, Happy People!
Now I have the Shining, Happy People song by REM in my head! So here’s the link, if you need to listen to it, like I just had to. 😉
Next, I went into the arbour garden, named for obvious reasons – there’s an arbour there, with a Pierre de Ronsard rose growing on either side. It’s a fairly new garden which I worked on just before The Hill Project, and I have read that it takes three to four years for the roses to cover and arbour. I will add photos of the garden soon. 🙂
There are two other roses growing in the arbour garden as well, a Jude the Obscure and a Roald Dahl. The Roald Dahl in particular needed some attention, but I did cut a couple of the roses to bring inside.
Peachy orange bloom of the David Austin rose, Roald Dahl.
Once in the arbour garden, I spent more time than I planned on doing – I couldn’t find a Gordonia tree I had planted nearly a year ago! It took some clearing of a Baby Sun Rose ground cover, which has really taken off, to find the tree. The ground cover had grown over it! The tree was bought as a tube stock plant, and was minute when I put it in the ground. The last time I checked on it, it was beginning to become established, growing healthy new leaves, so I knew it was in there somewhere. Needless to say, I removed the Baby Sun Rose, to give my Gordonia a chance to grow. I can plant more Baby Sun Rose, which is easy to strike from a cutting, when the tree is bigger.
Between pulling weeds, dead-heading spent blooms and choosing flowers, time got away on me. When it started to rain, I ran indoors feeling hot, sweaty and wet, and discovered I had spent three glorious hours in the garden. 🙂 After a shower, when I arranged the flowers, I found I had enough for three vases!
And here are the Hydrangeas ~~
Hydrangea flowers from two different plants.
Somehow, one of my Hydrangea bushes has ended up growing green flowers this year. I wonder why that is, when in previous years the flowers have been blue?
Faithful lavender always looks beautiful and smells divine!
Four Hydrangea blooms filled the vase, leaving just enough room to add a few stems of beautiful lavender.
Where’s the vase??
As you can see, the vase is almost lost beneath the showy Hydrangeas.
A few miniature roses among a Roald Dahl and Olivia Rose Austin.
A couple of roses had short stems, so they went into a tiny, plain white jug, which was another find when we cleaned out my inlaw’s house before they went into aged care. I also added some miniature roses, three Chameleon and a Love Potion rose. The purple sprays behind are ‘Walker’s Low’ Catmint, which grows in abundance around my garden and keeps the bees very happy.
With the flowers arranged, I chose three different places to display them – the Rose and Gerbera vase is in the main living area ~~
And the vase of Hydrangeas and Lavender is on the mantlepiece ~~
The final, tiny vase I decided to put in my office ~~
When my son-in-law replaced my computer recently, he suggested I move the tower and speakers, which previously lived on my desk, to a built-in shelf under the desk to free up some space. Now, I just have a set of red, metal drawers on the desk, which holds printer ink and paper – and is the perfect place for a small vase of flowers. So I thought it might be fun to add a photo of my office work area. 🙂
And from my desk, this is my view of the flowers, turned towards me ~
As always, thank you Cathy for inspiring my creativity with flowers! 🙂
Update: A Tuesday edit ~ here’s an additional photo for Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, who featured yellow/mustard coloured daffodils and narcissi in her vase this week. Cathy accompanied her vase with a tin of Coleman’s mustard, established 1814. I haven’t seen Coleman’s mustard here in Australia, but we do have Keen’s mustard. So for Cathy, here’s an additional photo, taken today ~
Next time I visit the supermarket, Cathy, I’ll see if we have Coleman’s here. 🙂
During the past year, I have been giving my garden a revamp. I have completely ripped out some garden beds and transplanted various plants that I decided I didn’t like growing where they were. I have no idea how much I have spent on new plants, but all the time and money spent has been worth it, especially when I am rewarded with beautiful flowers, especially roses.
David Austin rose, Desdemona.
During winter I ordered several bare-root roses and could have ordered more if I hadn’t restrained myself. I could justify limiting my new purchases though by reminding myself that after I see how big the rose bushes grow during summer, I can evaluate how much room I have left. There’s always next year, and the year after, and the one after that … to buy more.
Pierre de Ronsard.
Desdemona has company in the vase, of course, including this pale pink beauty. Another David Austin rose, a climber called Pierre de Ronsard was named in honour of the French Renaissance poet. I have two Pierre’s now, I purchased a second this year, and have them growing on both sides of a garden arbour.
Going back to the star of this week’s vase, according to the David Austin website, Desdemona was named after “the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s Othello”. Austin roses are often named after literary figures, which appeals to me due to my love of literature. Desdemona grows to one metre in height, but I suspect she may grow taller in our fertile soil. We’ll have to wait and see, given she is a newcomer to my garden.
Beautiful buddleia.
The buddleia I picked this flower from has been in my garden for a few years now. I planted a Gertrude Jekyll rose next to the buddleia, then wondered why my rose never flowered. A quick read gave me the answer, Gertrude does not like being overshadowed by other plants. I was prepared to sacrifice my buddleia so cut it back close to the ground.
Gertrude thrived and bloomed! And so has the buddleia, but a smaller version of its former self. I actually prefer the plant now it has regrown, as it looks healthier than before and I regularly cut off the spent blooms to keep it in shape.
Verbena ‘Polaris’.
Yet another new addition to my garden this year is Verbena ‘Polaris’, a drought-tolerant plant which thrives in the summer heat. The foliage of the plant is rather coarse, but I love the delicate flowers and thought they would look beautiful sharing a vase with Desdemona.
Right at the back of the vase are a couple of sprigs of New South Wales Christmas bush, which I added for an extra touch of greenery.
I enjoy the contrast of the other flowers added to the vase, but I suspect that when my Desdemona rose bush has grown more and has more flowers to pick, a whole vase full of her blooms would be an amazing sight to see. 🙂
The weather is still overcast here this week. We have had an occasional touch of sun breaking through the clouds, but the house continues to be rather dark and gloomy for this time of year. I took most of the photos close to a window, for extra light, but my vase this week will be displayed on the mantlepiece, in front of a large mirror.
The reflection in the mirror makes the flower display appear even bigger than it actually is. 🙂
My vase today is a contribution to In a Vase on Monday, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. Thank you to Cathy. 🙂
In My World 