In a Vase on Monday: Prince of Darkness

Today’s vase fulfils three objectives:
1) using more of the tithonia flowers, which are a prime example of the pleasure that comes from successfully growing something from seed
2) being able to use the above title in conjunction with the tithonia
3) using this recent charity shop glass vase, which has such a distinctive shape and colour and a really tactile heaviness to it

The tithonia are, of course, Tithonia ‘Torch’ and are indeed a real beacon of brightness in my cutting beds. I would have liked to use longer stems in the vase, but had to trim some down to match the shortness of others – the branching flower stems do grow longer as the flowers fully open, but as most of the flowers were not quite at this stage they hadn’t reached their full extent and unfortunately a number of lower buds also had to be removed. Next year, when I hope to have more success with an earlier sowing, there should be more flowers open at once – definitely one to be recommended.

To keep it simple, I just added a few flowering stems of red hook sedge, Uncina rubra, those little ‘hooks’ that are visible on the above photo readily grabbing any bare limb that brushes them – I am planning to add more grasses to the garden by next year, so there will be new contenders to join flowers in my vases, particularly at this time of year. I knew that the deep orange shade of the tithonia would suit the equally deep and firey red of the charity shop vase – it only cost a pound or two and although there was no label on it I suspect it is from a known maker, possibly Wedgwood, and will look into that when I have an odd spare moment. Props are a candle stub and a vintage candlestick, the sort you would take upstairs to bed with you before electricity was the norm, and although I rooted around in our bookcases to see if I had my A-level annotated copy of Marlowe’s ‘Dr Faustus’ for a further prop, I clearly hadn’t.

It being another wet and this time slightly blustery Monday, photographing was again difficult and, although not brilliant, the main photo still looked better without flash, whilst a small sheet of black card provided an appropriate and possibly better background for the closer pictures. As autumn moves further on towards winter this will increasingly become an issue, so any advice from better photographers would be welcome! Also welcome would be your own vases, so if you hadn’t already done so why don’t you join us on a Monday by finding something from your garden or thereabouts and popping it in a ‘vase’ for your own pleasure during the week? If you would like us to see it too, whether the contents are popped or tweaked artfully, then include a link to this post and in a comment on this post leave a link back to yours. It’s a lovely way to start the week!