In a Vase on Monday: Keen as Mustard

As was clear from many Six on Saturday posts this weekend, spring is very much on its way in the UK and some other northern hemisphere gardens, so spotting signs of it is a doddle, with spring bulbs very much to the fore. It was only after I snipped the contents for today’s vase that I remembered my intention to pick some of the double Narcissus ‘Tête Boucle’ from the baskets usually hanging at the front of the house, but removed to allow installation of external installation (delayed numerous times, unsurprisingly due to the weather) and now languishing largely unseen at the side of the property instead. Perhaps they will still look as good next week?

Sadly, there were neither blue skies nor sunshine yesterday, when I created this vase, and if I had checked the forecast when I first got up I would have searched for and picked blooms, popped them in a vase and photographed them first thing, when it was at least dry. As it was, however, with other commitments later, I found myself dashing out in the rainy late afternoon to find something I could quickly cut and display and photograph.

It is so satisfying snipping fresh greens from a garden for a salad. And it’s fun to add flavors to different salads beyond your standard lettuce varieties. Certain greens, like mustard and arugula, can add a spicy kick to salads, sandwiches, pizzas, stir fries, and other recipes. In this article, I’m going to share some tips on growing mustard greens from seed.

Like last week, I hadn’t a clue where to begin when I began my hunt for the contents of today’s IAVOM, but was prompted by the arabis shown on yesterday’s Six on Saturday, one clump of which grows close to the back door. The arabis firmly fixed the scale of the vase as ‘small’, making the rest of the task suddenly easier, as I cut unnamed pulmonaria and Cyclamen coum blooms, adding slightly reddish sprigs from Nandina domestica ‘Obsessed’ and an unlabelled heather that had been included in baskets at the front of the house to provide some height.

I had no preconceived ideas of what I might pick for today’s vase but wanted to avoid hellebores and snowdrops, which would have been the easy option. I don’t have many summer snowflakes, Leucojum aestivum, but the first stems were in bud so I cut three as a starting point, keeping the stems long.

…well, not really, actually a vase of Helleborus ‘Double Aubergine’. With no real aubergines to hand, the flowers and an arum leaf are propped up by a few (shop-bought) sugar snap peas, and displayed in a slim-waisted dark green vase, possibly Caithness Glass.

Just a very quick IAVOM post from me today, a teeny Bretby Pottery salesman’s sample jug, with a posy of common double snowdrops, Galanthus ‘Flore Pleno’. They may be ‘common’, but that doesn’t stop them being exceedingly pretty, with their frilly white tutus and generous green markings. And if we are going to use a double domino as a prop, let’s have a double six!

Inspired by the lovely pink pussies of Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’ featured in my last Six on Saturday and a sudden glut of blooms on Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’, creating today’s vase began easily. Selecting stems of the former that wouldn’t detract from the shrub and reaching flowering stems of the latter proved a little challenging, but it was easy enough to choose additional material to complete the contents, with witch hazel H vernalis ‘Amethyst’ and foliage of Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ providing different degrees of pinkness.

I am not quite sure where the thoughts of the Orient came from, although the witch hazel at least has oriental ancestry – it may simply be that the yellow, cream and yellow-green contents brought this little perfume bottle to mind, thus bringing thoughts of the Orient to me even if no-one else…

I’ll sing you one, O Green grow the rushes, O What is your one, O? etc

Last week, Anna of Green Tapestry apologised for ‘cheating’ when she shared her amaryllis/hippeastrum In a Vase on Monday. Happily, our rules for this meme are fairly fluid and contributors share vases very much in the spirit of it, and it was by no means cheating – and I am not just saying that because I doing something very similar this week! In fact, I am very grateful to Anna for messaging me back in November to let me know that ‘a certain German supermarket’ had these bulbs in stock, allowing me to hotfoot it down to our local store ASAP.

eye of potato, monkey’s tail….