In a Vase on Monday – White froth

Monday is the day to pick flowers from the garden and fill a vase and to join Cathy at Rambling in the garden for her weekly meme.  Last week’s little glass bottles of flowers lasted very well; it was only yesterday that they began to look sad and past their best, proving to me that flowers last much better in a vase in water than when I use Oasis foam.

The Slope on Thursday – rain today!

Firstly I like to thank you all for the very positive response to the idea of celebrating the feast of St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners next year.  I had suggested that perhaps we could write about a miracle in our gardens but Marion St. Clair suggested that we bloggers could have parties in our gardens to celebrate, thank you Marion!  I think this could be a wonderful idea, if you have any ideas about how this could work please leave a comment on the original post here, so that everyone can read all the ideas in one place. 

The Festa degli amici di San Fiacre – party time in the garden

Did you know that there is a patron saint of gardeners?  Of course there is! There’s a patron saint for almost everything!

A few years ago a friend here wanted to celebrate finishing a gardening course she’d undertaken but she wanted the party to become the means for people interested in gardens or nature or growing their own food to come together to share plants and seeds and, this being Italy, share a good lunch too!  She did some research and found that the patron saint of gardeners is San Fiacre and that his feast day is either 30^th of August or 1^st of September.  To make it easy for people to participate the celebration has taken place on the last Sunday in August.

GBFD The good, the bad and the downright ugly!

Every month on the 22^nd is the time I ask you all to focus on foliage.  In spring and early summer most of our gardens focus many on flowers even though I think that without good foliage the flowers won’t be as satisfying as they could be; in autumn (and there is no negating the fact that autumn is here in the northern hemisphere) foliage often becomes the centre of attention.

The Slope on Thursday – A dull morning

A mix of weather again this week.  Some hot days (26°C), cooler nights and torrential rain for an hour on Tuesday afternoon.  The garden is thriving on these heavy showers of rain, the only plants that don’t appreciate it are some of the low growing silver leaved Artemisia which are showing a lot of dieback; where they are growing over gravel instead of soil they are OK.

In a Vase on Monday – Yellow and Gold

It is Monday again and Cathy who is rambling not in her garden today but in the wilds of Shropshire asks us to fill a vase with flowers from our own gardens.  She prepared a vase earlier for us so we shouldn’t miss our weekly fix of picking and enjoying some flowers in our homes.

The Slope on Thursday – Green and Gold

There wasn’t a post last Thursday about the slope as I was away at the Amalfi coast. Here’s a photo to give you an idea of the views I was enjoying as we drove from Sant’Agnello to Maiori, one of the most beautiful if slightly scary drives in the world.  The road clings to the cliff edge and twists and turns alarmingly; with scooters overtaking on the blind bends it is fortunate that you can pull into laybys every so often to settle the stomach as well as allow the driver to enjoy the views too; I’m assuming he was watching the road at all times!

 

View of Positano

September Evening Light

September is here and the hours of daylight are less, so all the more reason to enjoy the last rays of the sun as it slips away on the horizon.

In a vase on Monday – More greens please!

Having been away for most of the week (I was taken to the Amalfi coast for my birthday) I returned on Saturday keen to see what flowers had been left standing after a deluge of rain last Monday and strong north winds on Tuesday.  A lot of the Cosmos, which has grown very tall (mostly all over 6 foot 1.8 m) had been knocked over but some judicious but rather late staking meant that there were flowers to pick.  The Dahlia continues to pump out blooms so it would seem churlish not to continue to include them in my vases.  The diverse range of colours made me want to create two arrangements. 

A wet Long View – September 2014

I took these images on 1st September but am posting today (the 2nd) because Monday is Vase Day!