Tag: Easter

Australia · autumn · chocolate · David Austin roses · family · garden flowers · grandchildren · in my garden · roses

In A Vase On [Easter] Monday!

Joanne22 Comments

Our family Easter celebrations began two weeks ago this year. My eldest son and his wife are in Bali for the long weekend, while youngest son, his wife and their two boys are in Adelaide, so we had a “whole family” get together two weeks ago for Easter. This weekend I had my two daughters and their families here. So what with one things and another, it has been a busy time.

During the past two weeks also, we have had rain nearly every day, not huge in quantity, but enough to prevent me from doing any gardening. How frustrating! Yesterday, however, when the sun shone for the first time in days, I got all my washing done. I also put my empty “bunny” vase in place last night, ready to add flowers today for my contribution to Cathy’s regular Monday event, In a Vase on Monday.

And what did I awaken to this morning? You guessed it, more rain!

Between showers, I collected a few pretties to add to my vase, although my lovely Gerberas, which I had thought were finished for the season, are a tad bedraggled again. The weight of the raindrops tends to make their delicate petals flop downwards.

Raindrops on roses – (and whiskers on kittens – sorry, I had to say it!) – on the other hand always look so beautiful. This lovely rose is a long stemmed ‘Olivia Rose Austin’; all the other roses on the bush were short stemmed, so wouldn’t suit my bunny vase.

There were a few red roses, but I only chose this one as it is fully opened. I am surprised by how many rose buds are still on all of my rose bushes, given the time of year and the number of rainy days we have had.

The Tibouchina flowers look rather stunning with raindrops on their petals as well. They are slightly weighted down by the moisture, but being stronger petals they seem to cope. I should also mention that the green foliage in the background is a few stems of Port Wine Magnolia. It isn’t in flower just now, but the foliage acted as an ideal vase filler, to hold the flower stems in place.

Being Easter, I had to add a prop of Easter eggs with my vases. The little ones all know where Nana’s stash is, and know that a simple “please” when they visit will have me sharing their “special treats”.

I read today that in the USA, there are no chocolate Easter eggs; also, there isn’t a four day long weekend over Easter, which is what we have here in Australia. So perhaps in the comments you can let me know how Easter is celebrated in other countries? 🙂

When I turned the calendar page to April today, I was surprised also to see a picture on the calendar of cows. That’s not very Easter-ish, but I do love cows. The calendar has an Australian country scene for each month, so that might be something that might interest some of you. This stand in the main living area, where I keep my recipe books – well, some of them – has become my favourite place to display my vase of flowers each week.

I have a row of various coloured Impatiens in my front garden and they have survived the hottest summer days, and now the cooler autumn days very well indeed. When we have a fine day again I will take a photo of them in the garden, as they really do look lovely.

This small vase of Impatiens sits beside me as I write. They have been indoors for about five hours now and I have noticed that the petals, now dried, look much more lively than in this photo.

It is rather late though, so I won’t take another photo. Today was another busy day, complete with visitors – who raided Nana’s Easter egg stash while here 😉 – and I am about to call it a night. I am dreadfully behind in replying to your lovely comments and also visiting everyone’s blogs, but this week I expect life to return to the usual schedule for a while.

Thank you once again, Cathy, for hosting In a Vase on Monday. ❤

Australia · daughter · from my garden · garden flowers · Ixora · native Australian plants · rain · seasons · subtropical weather

In A Vase On Monday ~ Bird of Paradise

Joanne21 Comments

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. 🙂