I don’t feel too bad about cutting flowers from the garden at this time of year, since there is a rapidly approaching natural end in sight for many of them. For instance, the winds last week already culled a few of the tallest flowers, including some sunflowers, cosmos and tithonia, so that is where today’s vase begins.
The sunflowers include side shoots from ‘Earth Walker’ and ‘Magic Roundabout’. The cosmos is ‘Purity’ (what a useful flower that is!). The tithonia is ‘Torch’.
Writhing cosmos managed to damage some miscanthus flower heads on the way down, so they are in the vase too.
Leaving aside the damaged blooms, I picked a rather lovely tagetes, called ‘Fireball’, for the front of the display, along side calendula ‘Neon’. Both were growing as companion plants in the vegetable patch. There’s also a glowing orange from some cosmos ‘Bright Lights’ (definitely now winding down in the patio pots). And finally, I’ve added a couple of chrysanthemums in the form of neat ‘Little Dorrit’
Chrysathemum ‘Little Dorrit’ is in the centre of the shot
and charming ‘Littleton Red’:
Chrysanthemum ‘Littleton Red’
Quite the collection of heat and sunshine-related names aren’t they? unsurprisingly, this vase is eye-catchingly bright … even on a dull day! Although as things transpired, the sun came out, when I took the vase outside to take photos.
Ah yes, I just remembered that there is a spike of leonotis nepetifolia in the centre of the bunch to add a spot of drama and give the vase a bit of height.
Thanks to Cathy@ramblinginthegarden who encourages folk to start the week by putting flowers ‘In a vase on Monday’. It’s a lovely way to bring seasonal highlights indoors to enjoy them at close quarters. It’s well worth a visit to her blog to browse the array of vases linked to her post!
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Beautifully autumnal!
Oh yes … maybe I should have used a pumpkin as a vase!
This is gloriously bright, Allison, and would be even without the sun shining – the names help too! I have had quite a few dahlia casualties from lack of adequate staking, so have random pots of oddments around the kitchen…
Thanks Cathy. Bright is good at this time of year! Yes, there have been some nasty, twisty winds around, causing heartache to many gardeners. In my experience sunflowers will fall whether they are stake or not! Their side branches are so easily torn. I didn’t expect the cosmos to get to 6-7ft though, so missed those entirely. Shame about your dahlias, but at least you’ve been able to enjoy them indoors and the plants are usually quite good at bouncing back with fresh growth and flowers. 🙂
And it was down to lack of staking rather than the wind, I think, as they were getting top heavy
That’s a beautiful collection of warm colored blooms. I sigh over all the wonderful chrysanthemums I see in blog posts at this time of year as those aren’t flowers commonly grown in Southern California. All our garden centers have to offer are small sad plants with flowers that don’t have much personality, brought in prior to Halloween and gone by Thanksgiving.
Lol! It’s taken me years to like chrysanthemums as I can’t stand the smell. However, seeing what can be done creatively with their flowers through the wonderful arrangements shared via Cathy’s IAVOM meme has definitely changed my attitude and got me trying some.
I was tickled to read the Dickensian name — that’s quite a pretty flower!
Yes, isn’t it? It looks so demure.
Really gorgeous. Full of autumn sunshine colours. So uplifting! My Cosmos is over and the Tithonia just hanging on.
Thanks. Real pumpkin colours! I am going to have to try pumpkin ‘vases’ this year.
This is spectacular. The rich colors offset by the white cosmos are perfect.
In fact, I can’t get enough of that white ‘Purity’ cosmos. It seems to work with everything!