This is the week that I wander around the garden looking for the last few flowers half buried under the fallen leaves. I snip my discoveries, bringing them indoors to create one final bouquet.
I was lucky on my walkabout this week and found more flowers than usual: Nepeta (cat mint), Tricyrtis (toad lilies), a short wand of pink flowers on an old, unnamed Heuchera variety, one purple aster, one Geranium macrorrhizum, one lone Viburnumn tomentosum flower and a spray of Tanacetum parthenium ‘aureum.’
Most of time these final arrangements are composed of leaves that have lots of visual interest and that last for a long time inside the house. Rarely do I find as many flowers as you see here. Frankly, I know they won't last long and that I'll be out in the garden in a day or two looking for leaves. Once I have the bouquet looking the way I want, I just keep adding water and removing dead foliage and I’ve got a centerpiece that will often get me to Christmas — certainly through Thanksgiving.
Unless you know your flowers, the image above might be a bit deceptive. The container is only 5 inches tall to give you a sense of how small most of these blooms really are. And it's also a bit of a science project: I picked a number of cransebill Geranium leaves that had turned varying shades of red and orange to see how long they'd last compared to the still-green leaves. There's only one left as you can see; they don't last a fraction of the time a green Geranium leaf does.
The grouping below is from a few years ago and includes a more typical end of season mix that relies heavily on foliage. Among the plants here are a golden variegated sage and Ajuga 'Burgundy Glow’ with purple flowers in the center of the arrangment. The leaves include cranesbill Geranium, Bergenia, Epimedium, Heuchera, Tiarella, some ferns and ivy. This arrangement is also a good reminder to me to try growing that lovely sage again. It really lights up the mix.
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