Wordless Wednesday – Spring nearly Sprung ;-) snowy Salford

28 February 2018 – day three of snowy Salford – currently minus 6 at 4pm #windchillfactor – #beastfromtheeast

In a Vase on Monday – A change is as good as a rest

A change is a good as a rest – proverb

A change of work is the best rest. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1888) – 2nd Sherlock Holmes novel

The more regular readers of this blog will have noticed that MOST of my flowers vases contain purple, pinks, lilac and white flowers with red appearing now and again. So perhaps people might think that’s the only colour scheme in our garden – it’s not.  I walked round looking for flowers to pick, it was a very overcast day here in Manchester, a couple of different yellow flowers popped out from the gloom.

Definitely time for a change!  So this week’s In a Vase on Monday, in a milk bottle vase, has many yellow flowers and a bit of red too.

In a Vase on Monday – Coreopsis – sunfire, red dianthus, Achillea, sweetpea – 26 September 2016

It looks so cheery, even though it’s feeling very Autumnal:

• Coreopsis – sunfire – I really liked their raged edge.
• Pansy 🙂
• Red dianthus –these flowers have appeared in ‘In a Vase on Monday’ before:
  • Keep Calm and Carry on (last week – 18 September 2016)
  • Restful Reds and Pinks (23 June 2016)
• Achillea – it comes in many colours and sizes. This one starts as yellow and fades to pink/yellow.  It only grows about 18 inches high.  I don’t know its name as it was a gift.  Its common name is yarrow and it’s appeared in a vase before.
  • In a Vase on Monday – sunny yarrow, oranges and reds (10 August 2016)
• White sweetpea – this is the very last flower from the plant at the end of the garden.

Yellow is associated with happiness and joy especially for flower bouquets it represents new beginnings – so that seems appropriate too – since I’m about to enter a new decade.

Coreopsis – sunfire, red dianthus, Achillea, sweetpea – 26 September 2016

Do have a look at Cathy’s flowers over on ‘Rambling in the Garden’ – she has one vase with very architectural pink Nerine which look stunning.   She has another vase which has dahlias, zinnia and Persicaria amplexicaulis as well as foliage from oca –  It’s  a New Zealand yam – I’d never heard of this before.

Wordless Wednesday – Better in the garden, life is.

Better in the garden, life is. Yes hmm. Photograph copyright. R. Jones

 

In a vase on Monday – purple power

Purple pansies in a little spice pot – 30 March 2015

The weather has been horrible this weekend – very wet and windy.  The flowers were looking distinctly bashed about so I decided to pick some purple pansies for my ‘In a vase on Monday’.  There were only three that looked even vaguely OK so it’s a mini arrangement.

The jar usually has my safety pins in – it’s a spice jar.  I’ve got draws full of little pots full of bits and bobs so I don’t lose things – doesn’t always work though – oh well.

I’ve always loved the colour purple and have a lot of purple clothes.  In the past, it was the colour of royalty and the ruling elite because purple fabrics were very expensive to produce. The purple dye was made from the shells of a particular mollusc – 9000 shells were needed for one gram of the dye. The Phoenicians in the city of Tyre, in modern day Lebenon, discovered the process in about 400BC as the mollusc was native to their part of the Mediterranean Sea.  It helped make the town an important trading port.

It wasn’t until after 1856 that the colour became much more accessible to the masses, when 18 year old  William Henry Perkin discovered a synthetic purple dye which he patented – it made him a fortune. He was actually looking for a way to make synthetic quinine to cure malaria so it just goes to show things don’t end up the way you expected.  Certainly, that’s the case with gardening.    Eventually, the colour became known as mauve but this new dye, along with many others, helped make the 2nd half of 19th century much more colourful – whether clothes for the middle classes, wall papers, paints and paintings too.

It won’t surprise you to know that I’ve got quite a few plants with purple flowers in my garden but I’ll write more about them another time. I’ve written about my love of lavender before

These little purple pansies have really cheered me up this week – I hope they brighten your day too.

Cathy over at https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/ hosts ‘In a vase on Monday’ where people pick plants growing or flowering in their gardens and do a flower arrangement.  This week she’s got a lovely little vase full of blue and white flowers – do have a look….

In a Vase on Monday: yellow and purple in bottles

Here is my ‘In a vase on Monday’ with tête a tête daffodils making a re-appearance;  this time with a pansy (with Yoda). I hope you like it?

Daffodils, mini milk bottles a pansy and Yoda too – 23 March 2015

Cathy over at https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/ hosts this weekly challenge to pick and display flowers from your garden in a vase.  This week she’s got sweet william, tulips and some aquilegia.  I think it’s a lovely natural posy and a great vase too.

I’d seen Gwirrel’s garden using mini milk bottles with crocuses and Cathy use mini milk bottles in a crate a couple of weeks ago – with Hellibores – Don’t they look great?

It was pouring with rain this morning in Manchester but I had my eye on a few flowers around the garden and was hopeful I could do something with my milk bottle set.  I nipped out when I got home from work and picked these flowers.   It was fairly sunny when I took these photos but I definitely needed the flash to see the colours properly.

Here’s the arrangement on my mantlepiece in my lounge.

Tete a tete daffodils, a pansy and mini milk bottles – 23 March 2015

It’s a great idea #In a vase on Monday and I hope I can find some flowers for next week – I don’t have a greenhouse so we’ll see what’s flowered.   It’s fascinating seeing which plants are flowering, who’s got flowers growing in their greenhouses and also who’s gardening in more extreme conditions than here in a small suburban garden in Manchester.

Have you had a go this week? I’d love to see what you’ve done.