In a vase on Monday: You have to Hand it to the Little Pinkies

Despite the lateness of the season there are still several blooms that look as if they are on their summer holidays instead of knuckling down and preparing for Christmas and the wintry season, so today has become a feast of pretty pinks while that opportunity is still available. There were so may different pinks available that I snipped and plucked at will, my only mistake being to pop the collection onto a bench for a moment whilst I cut the last few, only for them to be whisked off immediately by a sudden swipe of Abigail’s hand (Abigail, for the benefit of non UK readers, is the name given to the ‘storm’ that has been teasing us for the last few days).

Although not all visible in the photographs, I realised too late, we have sprigs of the Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ that I was showing off the other day, its fragrance vying with the aromatic scent of a single bloom of Salvia ‘Neon’, the gorgeously cheerful blooms of Hesperantha ‘Mollie Gould’, still going strong Diascia personata, sprays of little sprawling rose ‘The Fairy’, big and blowsy swinging heads of Fuchsia ‘Swingtime’ and the slimmer more restrained F magellanica, an unnamed pink penstemon, the reddish pink lambs’ tails of Amaranthus caudatus and a head of reliable Sedum spectabile ‘Autumn Joy’.

The only added foliage was more of the Red Dragon (which will collapse overnight in due course and sign off till next year) with its pinky brown marked leaves and a few stems of Pennisetum ‘Rubrum’. In the hand (designed to hold a tea light, I believe, and usually rather creepily the other way up – think The Addams Family – in the Species Snowdrop border) are two flowers of Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’, not in the vase itself as I couldn’t find blooms where it was practical to cut a stem. I find her most endearing, albeit a little shy of showing off her friendly freckly face. The vase, as you may have guessed, is yet another Caithness Glass acquisition, slightly bigger than the more usual little posy vases.

Thank you for all your best wishes for In a Vase on Monday’s 2nd anniversary last week and for your on-going support – you are such lovely people 🙂 Twenty five of you posted vases last week and the winner of the vase cleaning brush was Donna of Gardens Eye View – if you email me your address Donna I will get it sent across the Atlantic to you as soon as possible. Thank you to everybody who posted last week and every week!

What will be in your vases this week? I look forward to finding out – it makes Mondays so exciting! See what you can find in your garden or forage nearby and pop it in a vase or other receptacle and post it on your blog, leaving links to and from this post.

ps scratch the screen below and perhaps you will smell the viburnum (or perhaps you will not)… 😉