Cathy of Rambling in the garden in the garden who hosts this popular meme guessed what would be in one vase today when she read my post last week about what I was enjoying in the garden, so to keep her interested and surprised I picked some flowers in a colour I don’t think I’ve ever used before – red!
Walking around the garden on a very cold but sunny Sunday morning I was surprised to find a red Anemone coronaria; the red variety has never been this early flowering in other years, continuing on I found a second, still in bud but this opened almost immediately it was bought into the warm house.
In a vase on Monday
I already had the red leaf (it was part of a lovely surprise Christmas present from a friend). The leaf is in a test-tube and the glass vase is designed to hang on the wall.
Anemone coronaria, crab apples in a glass Continuing on I noticed that there were more red flowers, this time on an evergreen shrub growing in a large pot, I think the form of the flower and the green of the needle-like foliage is just what is needed to complete my little arrangement today. If you recognise it, I’d love to know the name, thank you.
I picked the yellow Iris (I. Grand Canari) on Friday and have been watching as first one, then two flowers opened. –there are four blooms on this one stem, it will be interesting to see if all four will open.
Iris Grand Canari in the kitchen so I can watch as the flowers open
Iris Grand Canari, I carried the vase into the garden for better light
But the background is a bit fussy.
Iris Grand Canari,
Intriguing orange beard
I practised with the macro lens to try to capture the beauty of the flower
Beautifully ruffled edges to the falls
Iris Grand Canari, the classic Iris shape
Do visit Cathy to see what others have found to pick from their gardens today. Or of course you could join us, we’d love to see what you can find to pick in your garden today; you’ll be glad you did, I promise.
Have a great week. Friday 22nd is Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Day (GBFD), do join in if you would like to share whatever foliage is pleasing you this month.
Creating my own garden of the Hesperides 
Lovely and bright, thanks Christina. A good visual start to what is a very dark morning here. Your Iris is a stunner
The reds look so cheerful in winter; they have a different effect in summer I think, but I’m not sure why.
Perhaps it is the light. That and the fact that red works so well with plain old green?
It is dull dark and raining here, I’m wondering how I will get any decent photos for today. So your fun with red and yellow is a real boost! love seeing all those reds together in their different containers. Irises are one of my favourite flowers – so interesting and exotic and that yellow is so buttery delicious!
The Iris is lovely to watch as it develops, I think another bloom will open tomorrow; I’ll show it in my “what is giving me pleasure” post on Wednesday if it does. The winter bright sunshine (even when it is cold) is one reason I love living here in Italy.
Two very intense, strong colours and perfect for starting the new year.
The red is giving such vibrant zing to my kitchen.
These bright colors are very cheerful on such a cold day. I like your glass combo too.
It’s very cold here too, Marian but sunny and bright so not unpleasant.
There’s something very painterly about your vase – beautiful! Probably due to the texture in the background. Happy monday to you 🙂
Thanks Annette; I always have a lot of problems photographing the vases indoors; Italian homes are built to keep out light (and heat) as much as possible so light levels are low or artificial. I prefer to see the vases indoors as it seems rather odd for them to be outside but sometimes there is no option. Have a good week.
French homes too, that’s why we’re so lucky with all those windows. You’ve done a good job shooting the vase, I really liked it.
I really like your arrangement with the red Anemone. The position of the leaf is posed just right to stop the downward movement of the eye and send it back up around the other side of the design. Very fun and creative. The iris is a rich yellow, perfect for brightening up the indoors.
I love how you explain why something works or not. To be honest I place the evergreen stem so that it just dipped into the water because I didn’t want to strip the stem of its flowers or foliage; but now I’ll remember why that is a good thing, thank you!
A lucky placement but you chose to leave it there. It sets up an nice movement–the curve of the leaf moves left to the follow the bowl of the glass upward to the reds and back down again. Have a fun day Christina!
Thanks Susie
What a lovely ‘mixed media’ vase today, Christina – the anemone is so startingly red, isn’t it? I now have 150 of these A hollandica planted, half inside and half outside, at 3 or 4 week intervals in the hope that some will be flowering at the end of April for Younger Daughter’s wedding – strangely of the first batch, planted in mid Nov, the outside ones are coming through but the inside ones aren’t, whereas the blue and white ones are the other way round! As long as I have at least a handful of each in bloom then I will be happy….! The iris is also a startlingly bright colour and how lovely to have 4 buds opening at the same time – thank you for the gorgeous close ups you have shared with us.
As with most vases there was a fair amount of serendipity! One Anemone was laying on the ground, but the stem wasn’t broken; the red apples had been in the wine glass all week, I was hoping to use them but wasn’t sure how and the leaf. well that was just still there from when it was given to me at New Year. The other two buds on the Iris are slowly growing and are now showing a little colour, must take some more photos! Very strange about the growth patterns of your Anemones, they don’t seem to need a period of cold before growing but I can’t imagine why one colour would behave in the opposite way to the other.
That iris really is gorgeous Christina. And your red arrangement is lovely too. I like the look of the sprig of evergreen. The flowers look similar to salvia. I hope someone can identify it for you. Stay warm!
I’m hoping Kris will know what it is, I think I’ve seen it in one of her vases. You keep warm too; I imagine German houses are very well insulated and draught free, unlike Italian ones!
I love the colors. What brightness on a cold day and a good way to start the week, and the crabapples really complement the flowers.
Thanks Frank, I’m so surprised by how much I like the red!
I particularly like the crabapples in the container. That is something I have in my garden right now and it never occurred to me to use them like that. Very clever.
The apples were on the ground so I wasn’t robbing the display in the garden or the birds.
That A.coronaria is beautiful, as are your macro shots of the iris 🙂
Thank you for your enthusiasm for the macro shots, I feel it is something I need to do a lot of work on improving.
I adore the red Anemone especially now in winter, and the whole grouping is wonderful…then to see an iris already in the perfect vase to complement the iris’s zig-zaggy stem…wow!
I don’t think I’ve done a group arrangement like this before, it just somehow seemed right. Glad you like the Iris; I’m not sure if its early or a late second flowering – how can you tell?
Such joyful colours…I love the Iris, and hope you will be able to spend time admiring its continuing tour de force. The red grouping too is very effective.
A good reason to bring single stems into the house is to be able to watch and enjoy them in all their stages of flowering.
I love your shocking reds, so lovely together in the different shapes of glass vases. I wish I could look forward to some anemone coronarias blooming. Your irises are so lovely too, I can
‘t imagine them blooming at this time of year. The macro shots are fun, especially the beard, I have a lens I need to learn to use too. I am looking forward to the iris bloom season.
I have been very slow to get to grips with the new camera we bought last spring; to be honest I prefer my old Lumix (which stopped working) and I think I will buy the new model; it can’t be beaten for macro shots despite being a fraction of the price of the Nikon DSLR!
I love the picture of that yellow iris in the vase outside. Such a cheerful yellow, makes me feel that spring might not be so far away. Foliage is rather scarce here at the moment, but I’ll look around for something appropriate to GBFD.
If you’d been here to experience the temperatures yesterday you wouldn’t think it was nearly spring! But the sky was blue and the sun was shining, the temperature didn’t get much above 4°C during the day; it’s cloudier today and the temperature may creep a little higher but it won’t feel as good.
Lovely shades of red for this time of the year! Have a great week!
Thanks Anca, you have a great week too.
Your weather must be extraordinary this winter to have both Anemones and Iris already in bloom, Christina! The evergreen with red flowers looks almost as if it could be a Grevillea but I couldn’t get a close enough view of the flowers to draw a conclusion. Could it be Grevillea ‘Noelii’? The form of the foliage and the size of the flowers is similar to my G. lavandulacea ‘Penola’ but the foliage of that variety is gray, not green as yours appears to be.
Hi Kris, I thought it was a Grevillea, but I wouldn’t know which one.
The Anemones usually begin in late winter so they’re not so early and the bearded Iris is, I’m sure, giving a late second flowering rather than an early spring show. Thanks for the suggestion for the plant name, I think Cathy (Absent Gardener) is probably correct with Grevillia rosmarinifolia, the foliage is just like rosemary and I even seem to remember now that was part of the name.
You have such an eye for design…hard to believe you have not done red before. The cornus fruits in the wine glass are a stroke of genius.
Your compliments are very gladly accepted; mostly I don’t know why things work or not, if you read Susie’s posts at pbm garden you’ll see that she does things with intention because she knows the rules; I learn a lot from her comments. Another reason this meme is so fun is that you can learn by others’ vases.
Hi Christina, I’m not usually a big fan of red, but your arrangement’s gorgeous and really striking. Like Kris I think the mystery plant is some sort of Grevillea.
I believe that light makes a huge difference to the colours we like. In the UK I didn’t really like yellow, red or orange but have lots of all three in the garden here; while soft delicate colours just tend to fade away in bright light.
You do have a great eye for design and the photos are stunning. I thought the evergreen was a Cephalotaxus (at first, pretty sure it is not) Grevilleas still mystify me!
I think it is Grevillea rosemarinifolius as suggested by Cathy (Absent Gardener), I even vaguely remember the name, now I see it!
I love the reds – such a perfect simplicity to the design! And you have iris in bloom?! How wonderful! My only bearded iris was planted a few months ago and is off to a slow start, but I think of them as early summer flowers in any case. Can you give me an idea of bloom times in milder climates, as I’m about to order some more and want to avoid the poor things trying to bloom in the hottest part of the year! Would really appreciate your experience on that 🙂
Bearded Irises usually flower at the end of April or beginning of May; some varieties are said to flower twice, usually in autumn. I’m sure my one is late in its second flowering rather than early for spring, I’m sure it did the same thing last year. Probably it was too hot and dry for it to flower again in autumn so when it had build up its rhizome, it flowered late. Kris in Los Angles says her irises don’t perform as she would like. But they certainly want dry conditions and free draining soil, probably the autumn rain we usually get is sufficient for them.
I love the simplicity and gorgeous colors; the photos are really stunning.
I’m trying to work on the quality of the images, so I’m glad you liked them.
The reds are beautiful, I love the crab apples in the glass too. It all looks so warm which is why I think it’s nicer in winter. Red is so hot in summer too bright. I agree with Kris I think it’s a Grevillia. It looks a little like my Grevillia rosmarinifolia, shown here at Daves Garden: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/134752/
Yes, I think you’re right. The foliage is just like rosemary; the flowers are redder than those on the link, it must be a different cultivar. I think you are right about why red is so pleasing in winter too.
Great macro work, especially the one showing the beard side on. I like the crab apples in the glass too. Much more interesting than glass beads.
Thanks Allison, I find the macro with the DSLR quite hit and miss, but at least some of these images were OK. As you know I don’t usually do props. but these three just seemed to come together.
I love the close up study of the iris. Very cheerful.
Welcome to My Hesperides Garden, thanks for your comment Karen, something cheerful is needed at this time of year.
Two wonderful vases this week. The red arrangement is gorgeous. I’m curious as to the name of the evergreen shrub – it looks perfect with the stunning red anenomes. the yellow iris is lovely – it must be like a ray of sunshine in your kitchen.
As always blog readers have given me the name of the evergreen, its Grevillia rosmarinifolia; I’m glad I picked it when as did as it isn’t looking very happy after the frosts this week.