In a Vase on Monday: Bruised

Ignoring the call of the roses, I gravitated instead to the blues and purples that are currently so prevalent, notably the aquilegia and alliums, for this Monday’s vase.

Clumps of perennial cornflower Centaurea have been opening in the blue & white border and although a ready spreader I can’t fault it for its reliability, colour or attractive shape. knowing I can pull up any excess when it gets ideas above its station. They were the starting point for the vase, but were quickly joined by an unnamed purple aquilegia and A ‘Black Barlow’ and single stems of Allium hollandicum and an iris I liberated from the last place I worked at. Providing additional ‘bruising’ were Astrantia ‘Bloody Mary’, Heuchera ‘Neptune’, perennial wallflower Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, secondary flower stems of Delphinium ‘Camelot’ (which I am hoping might be advanced enough for the buds to open), a single ‘Guinée’ rosebud and Persicaria ‘Red Dragon foliage, still looking decidedly sad. It seems to be the young persicaria foliage that can’t cope with being cut for a vase, as older stems tend to have great staying power and will often root in the vase water – I might replace it with an alternative, such as a dark heuchera leaf or two.

None of my blue vases were the right size for this bruised collection of blooms, so I chose this heather coloured Caithness Glass rose bowl instead, although the purple is largely lost when the vase is filled with blooms and glass pebbles and water. The single prop was a tiny boxing glove (to inflict the bruising…) which rather bizarrely came as a key fob with a pair of the Golfer’s trainers – possibly the Lonsdale connection?

I am still picking Winter Sunshine sweet peas regularly, giving away fragrant posies whenever I can but never missing out on having a vase of them somewhere in the house for myself. There are now enough outdoor sweet peas in bloom to fill a vase too – and I expect we shall be seeing sweet peas in some of your Monday vases today. It only takes a few minutes to pick material from our gardens and pop it in a vase to bring joy into our houses at the start of the week, so do think about joining us if you haven’t already done so. Just leave links to and from this post so we can visit your blog and see what you have found to pick. See you soon!