In a Vase on Monday: Don’t Spare the Blushes

The skies have been lowering and lifting all morning making it hard to catch the light for today’s photographs – always more of a problem than creating the vase in the first place! My starting point today was the Primula beesiana, not the plant I bought from Gardeners’ World Live three years ago which never amounted to anything but ones I bought at little cost from a JTF discount warehouse last year and split to give me half a dozen or more plants, all flowering. Their pinky lilac tiers are not fully open yet so it will be interesting to see whether they will open up now they are picked.

Joining these as yet unsung heroes was a single allium which I think must be A roseum – it is a few years since I bought the original bulbs which I don’t recall doing especially well, but I am now finding self seeded allims here and there which I think must be these – and seeing how pretty they are perhaps they can all stay. Having decided on this sugary palette ‘Blush Noisette’ was the next contender for inclusion, the four bushes now beginning to spread nicely across the fences that surround the rose garden and all smothered in buds or open flowers. This gave the title, and having picked pale pink Geranium sanguineum striatum these were then rejected in favour of Helianthemum ‘The Bride’, if only for their name!

A few stems of lavender were included for structure and scent and astrantia for more blushes. Although there are now a couple of the pinker astrantias coming into flower, they are barely establishing yet (somehow less easy going than the whiter ones here) so stems of old faithful A ‘Buckland’ were included yet again, not something not worth apologising for as they will recur time and time again! A friend had invited the Golfer and myself round for a meal for his birthday at the weekend, so I took her a little posy of these astrantia along with a single stem of Allium christophii, both of which will last well in a vase. Trying to keep the foliage minimal and delicate today, stems of Luzula nivea were picked but even these looked too ‘heavy’ so were excluded and a few clematis seedheads added instead, and the chosen flowers placed in a lilac Caithness Glass posy vase. I had forgotten about conditioning last week’s roses and they didn’t last long, but I learned from this and dipped Blush Noisette in boiling water for 20-30 seconds.

Despite using astrantia again I am pleased to have been casting the net wider and finding something a little different to use – and the process of selection and rejection is useful as I am learning that ‘less can be more’ in many instances. As the variety of blooms available widens it will be harder to become selective – but I shan’t be complaining! It is a joy to go through this process every Monday and a real pleasure to have home-grown flowers in the garden for most of the week. Having started it as a personal challenge it is lovely that others have become enthused by it – if you haven’t joined in yet you would be very welcome to do so. The idea is to find something from your garden or thereabouts (thinking out of the box is encouraged!) and post as usual but with a link to this post and a link back to yours in a comment – in this way we can enjoy each other’s vases too and share information about the contents and the process of selection as well.