In a Vase in Monday: More Rug Than Carpet

Tulips were inevitable today, but could easily have been the crème caramel coloured ‘Für Elise’ which are delighting me in a pot which has now been moved to a table near the kitchen window. However, when I realised that tulips in one of the pots containing Persian Pearl had fully opened but were almost over after our warm week I grabbed what was left of those in bud in the second pot and ran!

A closer look at ‘Persian Pearl’ with its contrasting yellow innards and rich pinky purple exterior puts me in mind of one of those exquisitely hand-knotted Persian rugs, so perhaps that is where the name comes from. A similar but darker shade of pink wallflower (bought as a bare root bundle more than two years ago) was flowering generously in adjacent beds so stems were picked to accompany the tulips. Retaining many of the tulip leaves meant  additional greenery was not really necessary but a few dark burgundy leaves of Heuchera ‘Chocolate Ruffles’ were snipped just in case and, on a whim, some all-but-spent flowers of Hellebore ‘Double Ellen Picotee’ were selected and those flowers which had lost all their pink were removed, leaving the faded and half-dry pink ones that will  retain their petals in the vase.

A pink vase was selected at first but something wasn’t right and it took a walkabout around the house to reminded me of the first piece of Caithness Glass I ever bought, one of the original ‘moss’ pieces. Mulling over potential titles centred round the notion of a Persian Carpet – not being in possession of one myself we will have to make do with a literary prop, ‘The Phoenix and the Carpet’ and other books by E. Nesbit, which I avidly read as a child and many times since. I would like to think that they would have the same appeal to today’s children as Edwardian life would have been as alien to me in the late 50s and 60s as it would be to anyone reading the books today.

As it happened, and allowing things to fall into place as they often do, just before photographing the vase I remembered a table runner I was given some years ago, probably from a Malaysian source, and with careful cropping (of the photo, not the runner!) it serves as a reasonable Persian carpet substitute – and there is today’s vase. Would you like to join us in juggling material from your garden with suitable vases, titles and props? We can heartily recommend the challenge, whether weekly or occasionally – and please don’t see it as a formal ‘arrangement’ as it is the bringing inside of things from our garden that is at the heart of the meme and all forms of plonking are welcomed. Just leave links to and from this post so that we can see what is bringing you joy this week.