In a Vase on Monday: Coded Messages

Resisting the temptation to look further I stuck with the original plan of using these foxgloves today, plants that have popped up out of nowhere between the ‘Danse de Feu’ roses and which have been looking particularly pretty for a couple pf weeks. Determined also to keep it simple, I didn’t venture much further and trialled a stem of Hellebore ‘Harvington White’, after admiring the dried flowers and empty seedpods on recent rambles. Still within a few yards of the back door these pickings were joined by three stems of the increasingly useful Luzula nivea.

Choosing several vases to try (this being a much taller selection than in recent months), ideally I wanted a pink or whitish vase to hold them, but once realising that a narrow neck was better for the overall shape of the arrangement this plain blue glass bottle had to suffice, although with the chosen black background this wasn’t really relevant in the end. Having removed a few of the spent flowers on the foxgloves they were gradually trimmed down until I was happy with their height, before repeating the exercise with the luzula.

The possibility of using one of the old fireplaces as a location for the photographs had occurred to me although this will always be restricted by the height of the arrangement. There were no fireplaces or chimneys left in the house when we bought it, but we have added some that are non-functioning – this one is in our bedroom, a cast iron front which I restored and inset into the wall, with a mock hearth below. Until today it was full of very dusty pine cones! The bedroom faces east so gets the morning sun, but the bed itself was blocking some of the light so the first photograph doesn’t show the colours very well, shown better right and below:

The vase is now back downstairs and looking pleased with itself, as I am too (pleased with the vase, that is). As always, I was eagerly looking forward to filling my vase today, such is the pleasure the planning, picking and creating gives. If you would like to join in, just post your vase or container of pickings from around your home, including a link to this post on your blog, and a link on this blog back to yours – this way we can share what you have found, learning from and supporting each other as we do so. It’s making us look at our gardens and plants in a different way – don’t you just love the shape of those empty seed pods on the hellebore, and if those aren’t coded messages on the foxgloves then what are they?!