A mixed vase this week with something old and something new. The white dried hydrangea is Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ (I asked the person who planted it this time to make sure since Google was giving me too many different options), and the new little pink blooms underneath it are Hydrangea paniculata ‘Living Angels Blush’. Some aronia leaves help reinforce the autumn colors and perk up the faded white flowers. Apologies for the bad lighting, the vase is sitting in the front hallway, and I’m afraid of moving it at this point in case it shatters the flowers!
It hailed overnight yesterday. That’s not to say that we’ve had a frost yet — it’s been chilly at night but not quite cold enough to upset all but the tenderest of tropicals so far. The temperatures have been fluctuating like crazy, though. The hail melted as soon as the sun rose, but it was still enough of a warning to let me know it’s time to start mulching the perennials and pulling up those summer tubers.
So we’ve come to the “last call vase” portion of the year. When I’m okay with cutting just about anything that hasn’t set seed (and some things that have), knowing that they’ll have a better chance of making it a week inside than out. You can see that the ‘Moonwalker’ sunflowers below have already taken a bit of a beating from being whipped around in the wind and weather the night before. The golden birdfeeder sunflowers are doing better, but they were also on shorter plants. In my optimism, I cut a big dahlia that looked like it might still open, but have since learned that dahlias don’t do much after cutting. So that will probably get removed later today. A couple of ‘Prairie Sun’ Rudbeckia, a little red bedding dahlia, and bunches of viburnum berries round out the bunch. I’m rather sad that the dahlia won’t open, because its big orangey-pink pouf would have been a nice stepping stone between the yellows above and reds below. Maybe next time.
I was going to skip today because of so many repeats, but realistically, I only have a few more days to post before I’ll be forced to skip for lack of materials. So here we go!
Two small bunches next to each other because I don’t have a big squat vase to fit all of them together. The first Chinese asters and lonely white phlox are joined by the dahlias and godetias, which show no signs of slowing down. It’s interesting to see how different the colors look in natural and indoor lighting. Those asters are just so ridiculously bright and cheerful, I hope I can get an entire bouquet’s worth next week.
Do cuttings rooting in water count as being in a vase? Maybe, maybe not. I’m enjoying having all these little jars of herb cuttings lined up, though, so they’re in this post, too. I knew the mints would root fast, but didn’t expect the thymes to be right beside them. The others seem to be dragging their feet in comparison but are probably doing just fine.
I seem to have ended up with mostly single-species vases this week, but that’s down to there being lots of big statement stems appearing in the garden. No complaints about that!
‘Bizar Dutch’ gladiolus, which came in a completely mislabeled package but was quickly identified with a Google search. Thank you, internet. I really do love two-toned flowers and hope I can get these to return next year. I remembered to sink the corms in pots this spring, so saving them will require a lot less digging, thank goodness. (Please disregard the scary-looking stains on the wall, that’s where the woodstove connects to the flue and sometimes a bit of ash escapes.)
Two ‘Moonwalker’ sunflowers and one bird feeder sunflower are keeping me company at the kitchen table. Hopefully, the cats won’t decide to take a nibble, but it will not affect their health if they do. That doesn’t mean they won’t get scolded, however, because they know better.
The godetias are still flowering up a storm. I am beyond impressed with the longevity of these things, both in the ground and in the vase. They seem to greatly enjoy Finnish summers. I hope they will self-seed for next year like the articles say, and must cover some of the pods with seed-catching bags for insurance.
Two orange ‘Neon Splendor’ dahlias, looking a little less than neon in the bright light. That red dahlia is a random bedding plant I grew from seed, but its flowers are really big!
I accidentally knocked this poor little begonia blossom off the plant while I was cutting dahlias, so it has been given its own little cup to sit in on the windowsill.
Finally, the hydrangeas have been brought in to greet visitors at the entryway. The last time I did this, they dried wonderfully and looked almost the same over the entire winter.
A small vase update this week, but an update nonetheless. I’m particularly happy with the first arrangement because I’m getting the hang of balancing flowers so that the heights are a bit more layered! More oranges and reds appearing, as if I needed a reminder that it’s autumn.
Two white-tipped ‘Holland Festival’ dahlias, the first bright orange ‘Neon Splendor’ dahlia, and a pretty bright red unnamed bedding dahlia. Yellow Austin rose ‘The Poet’s Wife’, godetias, and an unidentified pretty apricot rose round it out. That apricot-colored rose is super fragrant and came from a miniature rose plant that I got last mother’s day! They overwintered in the ground very well and I love that the plants stay small but still produce full-sized blossoms.
Last time I said that rose lilies don’t appear to open all the way. I’ll have to amend that to “they don’t seem to open all the way in a vase, but do so in the garden just fine”. Notice that it only has three anther stalks (pollenless) rather than the typical six! I do like how much less mess they make, but the trade-off is that they also are less fragrant.
A little shoutout before I begin — the lovely Rosie Amber featured my garden in her “Enchanting Gardens” series yesterday! It was really fun to babble for a bit about what we’re doing out here and it’s even more fun to dig into the rest of the posts and hear about everyone else. So if you want a peek at where all these flowers are coming from, that’s the place to look.
This week’s post is more a redux of last week than anything new. Mostly the same flowers blooming and I’m just changing out old sprigs for new to keep the same vases going. The main reason I’m posting at all is because I said I would come back with some pictures of blooms that hadn’t opened yet. So here they are!
‘Holland Festival’, close to fully opened, is gorgeous and everything I could have hoped for in my first successful dinner plate dahlia. I’m definitely going to propogate some more of these big ones next spring so that I can put together an entire arrangement of them. Also, there’s that purple hollyhock I mentioned last time.
Those double lilies (I’ve heard them called rose lilies?) I mentioned last time finally opened enough to be recognizable as such. They seem to take longer to unfurl than normal lilies, and the inside petals never actually open at all. Which means they’re pollenless, which is a huge plus.
Gratuitous extra lily pictures, because it might feel like I’m taking too many now, but I know that I’ll be looking back through them all winter to remind myself why I keep doing this gardening thing.
Bright late summer colors are everywhere! Dinner plate dahlia Holland Festival, a couple of particularly charming striped bedding dahlias, godetias and ‘Happy Lights’ figleaf hollyhocks in the back. The buds on the hollyhocks are closed right now, but one is a matching pink to the godetias and the other is a very dark purple.
Rudbeckia ‘Prairie Sun’ is proving to be one of the longest-lived cut flowers I’ve ever had. Some of the stems in this bunch are three weeks old, the rest are from last week.
Sunflowers that I have absolutely no memory of planting, so they might have been from birdseed or compost? They popped up in my herb bed earlier this summer and there they stayed, since I figured the veg garden could use a little more color. They’re mid-sized plants with a nicely sized flower for vases, so these are now in my bedroom.
Finally, more lilies because there’s a never-ending parade of them at this time of year. This bouquet includes a frilly double-petaled oriental lily that hasn’t opened yet but, I will definitely get a picture when it does.
Above is a picture of the basket that I take with me into the garden every morning. Around this time of year, in addition to the secateurs, snips, and gloves, I also pop in 2 plastic tumblers of water so I can gather flowers along the way. I never know what might be blooming and the crazy jumble that results is just as delightful as the more curated bouquets that come after.
My favorite mix this week — mixed godetias, a spray of Scepter’d Isle roses, dahlia Hartenaas, monarda, and a white bedding dahlia.
The rudbeckias to the left are the ones I cut for IaVoM 2 weeks ago! They are still going strong, so I freshened them up and moved them to a different room. Meanwhile, a second bouquet with even more big yellow daisies is now cheering up my bedstand.
Phlox, godetia, hollyhock and tree lilies for the front hallway.
A big bunch of lilies to keep the kitchen smelling nice, and a couple of calla lilies tucked in a corner of the bathroom to add a pop of color.
Lilies started blooming in the cutting garden this weekend! Pictured above are a combo of tree lilies (the big dark pink one and the big light pink buds that are just opening) and Asiatic lilies. All my lilies came in variety mixes, so unfortunately, I do not have names for any of them. For the last couple of years, I’ve been mostly aiming to grow enough for bouquets. The big ones get very fragrant in the later part of the day, so just a few of them in a vase is more than enough for our small kitchen.
Speaking of vases, this is a post for Rambling in the Garden‘s In a Vase on Monday meme! I might participate sporadically, depending on what’s growing, but it seemed a great place to share whenever I do get around to putting something together.
Rudbeckia hirta ‘Prairie Sun’ with mixed Achillea millefolium ‘Summer Pastels’. They were growing next to each other in the cutting garden, so I figured they might as well go into the vase together too!
This is the first time I’ve grown anything in the Rudbeckia family and I’m so happy with how they’ve turned out that I’ll have to try some other varieties next year to widen the color variation. Will make sure to save some seed from this one as well — big cheerful flowers aside, the stems are long and sturdy, perfectly made for vases.
Speaking of vases, this is a post for Rambling in the Garden‘s In a Vase on Monday meme! I might participate sporadically, depending on what’s growing, but it seemed a great place to share whenever I do get around to putting something together.
Little Blue and White House 