In a Vase on Monday: Tea Time

Today’s Monday vase is celebrating this humble arabis, with the clumsy full name Arabis ferdinandi-coburgi ‘Old Gold’. I seem to recall it not being a deliberate purchase, perhaps one to make up a ‘4 for £10’ promotion or something similar, and being shoved unceremoniously in an empty spot and then moved on again when the space was requisitioned for something else. However, it has since proved its worth as an edging plant, forming a dense evergreen spreading mat that drapes artfully over the brick edging of the border it now calls home, happily allowing itself to be split to perform similarly elsewhere too. Most of all it has, unbelievably, remained in flower for every month of the year – defying the usual recognised April to June period

A flash of inspiration led me to consider taking advantage of its good nature and fecundity and plant more of it adjacent to the sloped main approach to the garden, a not particularly fertile bed (a stony one reclaimed  from scrubby hedge escapees) where other things have failed to establish; hopefully, as a rock plant it should suit these conditions:

Joining the arabis, in a teapot from one of the children’s toy tea sets that IKEA do so well, is a stem of pink pussy willow Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’ and sprig of burgundy leaves from Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’. To give you an idea of scale, the arrangement is no more than 6inches or 15cms in height, which means the supporting prop, a French handmade and handpainted teaset, is teeny tiny indeed.

If you have material in your garden or foraged locally that you would like to pop into a vase or other receptacle to bring you pleasure, then please consider spreading the pleasure more widely by adding the necessary links and sharing it with the IAVOM community.

ps my rushed vase last week backfired as the hellebore I picked proved too immature and the stem flopped within a day…ah well