In a Vase on Monday: Thumbelina

For the last few days I have been envisagingthe creation of a vase of red blooms for today, which we duly have, although I am far from satisfied with the end result. Sadly, there weren’t as many of the small decorative Dahlia ‘William Kent’ fully open as I would have liked, and seeing the photographs I regret not cutting the stems shorter, to allow the blooms to hug the rim of the vase more. But at least it is a bountiful vase of red blooms, which was my overall aim, so that’s a positive!

The jewel-like colours of the dahlias were calling me today, but having featured ‘brights’ in recent vases I decided to go for more pastel shades instead. Although I started with cosmos (not as tall as some years, not a bad thing, and certainly bushy and reasonably floriferous, which they weren’t last year), cutting a few stems of each variety, they have largely disappeared amongst the other contents. Having discovered another Double Click variety, I have grown all four this year: DC Cranberries, Snow Puff, Rose Bonbon and Bicolor Rose, the latter being the newest one.

When I popped blooms into the test tubes of one of the stands we had for sale today at our open garden, it made me think straight away of ‘three little maids from school’. The original picking was of three different calendula – Indian Prince, Sunset Buff and Snow Princess – but the latter two were looking a little fraught after a day in the sun, so for my IAVOM contribution I replaced them with more Indian Princes, in a move that made me think of some oriental magic show, transforming Indian princes into schoolgirls (or maybe it is the other way round?). The schoolgirls are certainly of the undisciplined sort, refusing to stand up straight and smile for the camera.

The title of this post is more of an afterthought than anything else, but if you are wondering why I refer to golden arrows when the arrows are anything but golden, all will become clear in due course!

The clients that I was at both these mornings only need me for a half day at this time of year. Give it until next month and I’ll be back to full days. But that means I have the afternoons to myself. So after popping along to our local independent garden centre to buy 6 more bags of compost and running a few other errands, I was then home in time for lunch and the entire afternoon was spent in my garden doing all sorts.

Pink and white in a Victorian cranberry vase

If you love growing blooming plants and want to try something unique, these Water Flowers that Grow in Containers and Vases should be your pick.

Vases are a fun way to showcase the beauty of flowers or propagate plants from cuttings as they take up so little space. Just immerse the nodes or the end of the stems in the water, add some pebbles for decoration, and you are done! Here are some Popular Indoor Plants You Can Grow In Vases without too much trouble!

Recycle a tetra pak or juice carton to make a cool DIY flower vase from it. It won’t cost you a dime and your decor item will be ready. Keep a fresh cut flower in it or use a faux flower, it will look beautiful.

Here is the most comprehensive list of DIY Flower Vase Ideas on the internet that you’ll surely get a lot of ideas from.

It’s abundantly clear that, for me, choosing material for a Monday vase is going to get harder from now on – today’s could have been bright and cheery calendula, the first dahlias or any of a number of different roses. Instead, I have cut side shoots of a well-established delphinium, one of the ‘Camelot’ group, probably ‘King Arthur’, and paired them with the antirrhinum I showed yesterday, ‘Liberty Classic White’. I am hoping that cutting the latter will encourage the plants to branch out and become bushier. For greenery, I have included frothy and over-abundant meadow rue, brought in ignorance many years ago from my sister’s garden and for which I have been ruing ever since, as it has proved very difficult to eradicate. Also included are immature seedheads from a herbaceous poppy, just because.

You may or may not have noted that it has been very quiet on Rambling in the Garden this week, with a focus instead on the provision of a considerable degree of self-care. I try to keep personal disclosure on the blog to a  minimum, but sometimes things make such an impact that it seems the right thing to do to share it with my blogging friends. I contracted Covid over a week ago which gradually developed into full-blown fatigue and brain fog, and still lingers; the only thing I have had the energy to do is ‘rest, rest and more rest’ (the best medicine, I am assured), with everything else in life put on hold. For someone as active as me this has been hard to accept, but I have had no choice, and even thinking has been an effort.