In a Vase on Monday: Out to Grass

Today’s vase was quickly put together, the decision already having been taken to use some of the grasses which I have increasingly been coming to appreciate in the last couple of years. I have particularly enjoyed the tactile nature of Pennisetum villosum with its fluffy bunny tails and the plumes of Miscanthus ‘Ferner Osten’, wondering at the gradual change to a delicate lavender of a rescued stem of the latter in a glass on the kitchen window sill.

P villosum was potted up and placed in the greenhouse a few weeks back  as a winter precaution but there were a few lingering flowering stems which were snipped to join ‘Ferner Osten’, Pennisetum ‘Moudry’, Carex buchananii ‘Red Rooster’, Anemanthele lessoniana, Luzula sylvatica and Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’. I have a number of low growing grasses, mostly at the front of the shrub border where after two years they are becoming well established, but the taller grasses have been in situ little over 12 months and many have not yet made an impact, so by this time next year there may well be new favourites, and perhaps more new grasses too – yes, their shape and form and colour range have certainly won me over!

Keeping to the very muted palette, the chosen stems were placed in a pleasingly simple brown glass vase, the shape of which demands to be held and cupped in the hands but in practice rarely provides a suitable receptacle as there is little depth to keep the stems upright: today though, the stems were in sufficient enough quantity to hold themselves in place in the narrow opening of the neck. Borrowing from my much-played with 60s collection of Britain’s miniature garden, today’s props were  a 1:32 scale lawn mower and roller, and a section of ‘lawn’; after I last aired some of the collection as props for IAVOM I took time to tidy the whole box of pieces, sadly finding that they had been badly mishandled by the last child to have played with them 😦

Clearing autumn detritus around the garden has revealed early signs of spring bulbs, not just some of the earlier snowdrops but also what I think must be leucojum, but flowering is still a long way off. In the meantime there are witch hazels, winter blooming honeysuckle, sarcococca and Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ to look forward to and to help fill Monday vases – and ‘forced’ indoor bulbs too. Will any of these have made it to your vase yet? Whatever you can find in your garden or scrounge nearby to put in your vases please share it with us by leaving links to and from this post as usual.