In a vase on Monday- changing tulips

Cathy at Rambling in the Garden invites us to join her with a vase on Monday, to begin our week with the pleasure of flowers cut from our gardens or nearby.

I think I may have said last week that I was a little under whelmed with the Tulip ‘Miami Sunset’ – well I should have waited before passing judgement.  It is a tulip that ages beautifully; growing taller, the bloom becoming larger and the colours, deepening, changing, becoming like shot silk.

Here’s the vase as you saw it last week

In a vase on Monday 4th February

Here on the 6th February

In just two days the tulips have grown to be taller than the Teucrium that was almost hiding them.

Yellow at the throat, orange , magenta – the colours of the sunset I posted yesterday, Sunday

I actually took so many photographs as the tulips developed I think they will deserve a post of their own.

Here on the 10th February

By Sunday, they are shrinking again, drying a little, but still worth their space on the sideboard.

Just look at the petals – aren’t they gorgeous?  Like a watercolour

But there were of course more blooms to pick (I usually plant 25 bulbs to a pot but I have decided this is too many, even allowing for the fact that they don’t all mature at once I think 15 would be enough and it would spread the time I have them to enjoy.

Freshly picked in the middle of last week, more T. ‘Miami Sunset’ with Tulip ‘Daydream’

Tulip ‘Daydream’

Tulip ‘Daydream’ begins a soft yellow and then becomes suffused with peachy apricot.

T. ‘Miami Sunset’ with Tulip ‘Daydream’

The second picking of T. ‘Miami Sunset’ seem to have a slightly different colour which must be impossible as they were all planted together in the same pot!  But the petals appear to be slightly flamed reminiscent of T. ‘Princess Irene’ but much taller.

A couple of days later the stems have grown considerably

Two vases in the kitchen, yeah!  The vase of T. ‘Exotic Emperor’ hasn’t quite finished yet.

On Saturday I was invited to meet a friend’s new granddaughter, a very special occasion so I found a few fresh blooms and improvised with a cut down plastic bottle (I don’t have many of those now as we buy our water in glass and take them back to be re-filled).

A vase for a friend

There were a few more stems f T. ‘Daydream’, ‘Exotic Emperor’ and ‘Miami Sunset’, I added a stem with the seed head of Fatsia japonica and Iris unguicularis, plus a stem of Lonicera fragrantissima for perfume.

The kitchen worktop with one vase behind the other

Sorry about the mess on the worktop, I was in a rush by the time I photographed the vase.

T. ‘Daydream’ with the seed head of Fatsia japonica

Lonicera fragrantissima

Iris unguicularis

What have you found to put in a vase today to share with us?

I hope you have some good gardening weather this week.

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A few signs of Spring

At last!  Friday and Saturday were gorgeous days; sunny but not cold, not cold at all.  A day to open the windows to let the heat in.  Spring?  Well all gardeners only need a little sunshine to believe the end of winter is in sight.  Today, of course, is grey with a cold wind and so it’s back to wanting to be in fount of the fire.  But at least those two days remind me about spring.

The garden has its own rhythms, more dependent on day length than the temperature.

Snowdrops

If I see any snowdrops for sale in pots, I’ll buy some more and I might try to spot when the seedpods are ready to open and sow them into pots to increase stock

Violas

The jolly little faces of Violas are in pots on the terrace, tulip shoots are pushing though.

Iris unguicularis

Iris unguicularis

There are now three clumps of Iris unguicularis in the garden.  They flower for so long and seem so delicate, but flower on the coldest of days.

Iris unguicularis

Primrose

Primroses bought last year display inside the orangery were planted out in spring

Pale fleeting Crocus tommasinianus

Anemone coronaria ‘The Bride’

Anemone coronaria ‘Mr Fokker”

Anemone coronaria ‘Sylphide’

Anemone coronaria ‘Sylphide’

Anemone coronaria ‘Sylphide’

Anemone coronaria a chance seedling with much paler inner petals

The Anemones produce copious amounts of seed and a few do eventually grow but again I think I could increase stocks more consistently if I sow some of my saved seed.  Does anyone know if they need heat to germinate or a would they be better left in the coldframe to experience some cold?

Anemone coronaria it seems almost lilac

Something to enjoy even on very cold days is the wonderful sunsets.  So difficult to capture but a pleasure just to sit gasping at the colours nature can produce.

Wonderful sunsets

Wonderful sunsets

Have a good week.

In a Vase on Monday – Happy New Year

The last day of the year, a time to think back over the passing year and look forward to 2019.  But this post is not going to be about nostalgia, but rather hope that this year will be better than the last not so much for me but for the world – I hope for peace and some common sense from all the world’s politicians (non of whom seem to have shown much sense in 2018).

Flowering in November

I don’t often join with Chloris at the Blooming Garden when she writes about her favourite 10 plants for each month; however I think it is a good exercise to understand what pleasures each month brings. 

Flowering today in my garden

Our weather is strange; three or four days of very cold weather and rain; then a couple of days of glorious sunshine, so bright it was almost too strong to be eating lunch on the terrace without some shade!

Little February treasures

On the 26th January I wrote about my busy gardening week; but since then the weather has been anything but good so most of the work done has been in the greenhouse (report coming soon) rather than the garden.

Today, at last, there has been soon sunshine that had a little warm in it so I was able to prune most of the  mutabilis roses.  They had been pruned badly (by me) as a hedge between the drive and the vegetable garden.  To be brutally honest they are too large a rose for where I have planted them; add to this that they have been cut so as not to scratch the cars and to keep them back from the pathway in the vegetable garden – the result was crossed stems and new strong shoots beginning high up old stems.  I pruned all but three of the roses; I’ll show you what they look like when I’ve completed them all.  But suffice to say that the view of the onion bed is now very open!

I have another tulip that is not as described on the pack; one has reached flowering stage well before the others but instead of Daytona (White frilled) I have this…..

Tulip NOT Daytona

It is fringed as Daytona should be and is not unattractive but it is always disappointing when things aren’t what they should be.

Crocus, the first of the deep purple

Crocus. this image was last week, the yellow crocus are all finished now.

Tommi Crocus

Or as it should be Crocus Tommasinianus Lilac Beauty (seems a very long name for something so delicate)

Anemone coronaria ‘The Bride’

Volunteer Anemone

Grape hyacinth

There are thousands of Grape hyacinths in the garden but this is the only one flowering.

Iris reticulata

Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’

Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’

Hyacinth Miss Saigon, the first to flower in the garden

Anemone coronaria ‘Sylphide’

You can see last year’s Sedum stems need cutting back – I have done some of the many around the garden; those remaining are growing quickly which makes cutting the stems off low more difficult.

Sorry the name escapes me, something rosemariafolia

Native Freesia buds – they won’t be long now

Snowdrop

almost ripe seedpod from another snowdrop

Iris unguicularis

Viburnum tinus

When Chloris at The Blooming Garden writes her post for February flowers I’ll link to it.

I hope you are finding at least a few garden when you can get on with some work in the garden.

Brightening my day today

As I wrote yesterday in my In a vase on Monday post yesterday, when I was walking around the garden looking for things to pick for a vase I was very surprised to find that the yellow Crocus were flowering; as there are so few flowers around at the moment they made my heart jump with pleasure.