Each Little World

IVOM

A week ago I grabbed the last of the candelabra primroses and the first Martagon lily to make a quick arrangement for the living room. Stems of Heuchera flowers and an Allium complete the group.

Allium atropurpureum is new for me this year. The flower head is not fully round but more of a bowl shape with a narrow base. The color is dark and intense. Its companion Allium still hasn't opened. 

I love matching and contrasting flower color with the little strokes of color on this vase from Madison's Studio Paran.

The 90°F. temperatures at the beginning of this last week popped all the Martagon lilies, so I had no qualms about cutting them or the Alliums from my traffic island bed. I used them to make a deck vase for the 2022 Garden Bloggers Fling visit to our garden on Saturday. It's still looking good. 

I made a quick run out to K&A Nursery to pick up a special order Hydrangea that had come in. When I went inside to pay for it, I fell prey to temptation and snagged this Begonia. 

The flowers and foliage caught my eye but the stems are the real stars of this show. Alas, no id tag. I used it to block a clump of dead tree trunks as you enter the back garden for the tour. Yes, I know. Totally obsessive behavior. 

The kids are alright

Welcome garden bloggers

to the Madison, Wisconsin

Fling!

Wordless Wednesday

Vases and vases

This spring seems to be rushing by faster than in recent years. Every time I look around something has burst into bloom and something else has disappeared. I've been cutting flowers and plopping them into vases like mad. The best way for me to enjoy the bounty of my garden at the moment is indoors. I have enough daffodils that I can pick a lot of them without it being obvious. The Tulips grow in the Traffic Island bed in the street. Since it will disappear when the street is redone, it made sense to bring them indoors while I still can. 

No ids on these images. Just pretty flowers to enjoy.

Variation on the above theme.

A small offering in the Tea House.

GBBD: In a Vase on Sunday

A week of temps hitting 90°F or above had me in the garden cutting flowers for the house.They bloomed and faded so fast outdoors that this way I got to enjoy them for a little while longer. 

I love photographing floral bouquets on my tall Japanese display stand against the gold Japanese screen. After photographing, I moved the tea cups to the fireplace mantel where we could easily see them from our favorite reading spots.

To see what's blooming in other gardens, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens who hosts this long-running meme.

That was then. This is now.

Our weather continues to be frustrating. One nice sunny day and then it's back to cool, windy and gray. I looked at images from last spring after a stroll through the garden yesterday afternoon. It's not my imagination that the garden is behind last spring in bloom dates. 

'Valentine' Bleeding Heart: May 3, 2021

May 8, 2022

Cinnamon fern: April 16, 2021

May 8, 2022

Fritillaria thunbergii: April 19, 2021

May 5, 2022

Today's high is supposed to be 76°F, a prelude to the following four days whose temps are forecast from the mid-80°s to likely hitting 90°. It pretty much feels like we've been stuck in late March/early April for weeks and now we're barreling into August. Luckily I found enough flowers to manage a small bouquet to brighten my mood.

IOVM: Hellebores

I read a long article from the U.K. about how to use blooming Hellebores as cut flowers. After trying the tips, I decided that if I want a fresh Hellebore flower in a spring bouquet the best idea is to float it. The flower is facing up so you can see it and they last for days this way. 

I love these little 19th C. teacups with no handles and deep saucers. They're perfect for floating a flower — or two.

H. 'Kingston Cardinal'

A pair of H. 'Royal Heritage Strain'

I always buy a few pomegranates in December for holiday decorations. I continue to use them as they slowly dry and are preserved.

Since rain was forecast for the weekend, I decided to do a bowl of Hellebores. I concentrated on pinks and pinky reds with a few whites. Love the bit of carpet that's visible at the edge of the coffee table where I set the bowl. 

The coffee table is always covered in books and magazines. I had to move them to take the photo above and decided it made more sense to move the bowl and keep are piles of reading material in place. 

I was shocked as soon as I set the bowl down in its new location to see that the blossoms were all red-violet and the pomegranates definitely were not. How did I not realize that before?

Easter greetings

IVOM: The end and the beginning

Last week it rained on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then it started to snow on Friday. Saturday and Sunday, the overnight lows went down to 17°F.

I went out yesterday afternoon to see if there were any flowers to bring indoors. The first bloom I came across was a small dried Hydrangea arborescens flower that had flown over the fence from my east side neighbor. The shrub it came from is actually one that had been growing on my side of the fence and travelled underneath into their garden. I dug mine out years ago, so it was rather fun to get one of the flowers. 

I clipped a frond of an autumn fern to join it in a tiny wood-fired vase by Tony Gebauer of Door County. The raku vase is by the late Wisconsin artist John Natale. 

My earliest snowdrops (Galanthus varieties) were fallen over or closed up again. I decided to pick a few in hopes they'd open and perk up indoors. Voila!

The ones with green tips are G. nivalis viridapice. The ones spread wide open are G. 'Magnet', the rest are likely G. plicatus 'Dionysus'.

My grandmother's tiny Chinese cloisonné vase is the perfect container for them. 

IVOM: Something old

I noticed a group of Sedum flower heads glowing in the late winter sunshine when I was walking in the garden before last week's snow. I clipped a few stems and put them into the vase that had been standing in solitary glory on the dining room table. 

More and more I'm drawn to vases that look as beautiful empty as when filled with flowers. This one by ceramic artist Delores Fortuna is a perfect example. 

Every side is different, giving one a multitude of display options. The color and sparseness of seed heads and dried flower heads that are still standing at the end of winter make then ideal companions for this container. The vase is 11 and 1/2 inches high and the disc-like collar at the top is 7 inches in diameter. 

I'm hoping this week's warm weather will give me some early blooms from my garden for next week's container. I am so ready to be able to play in the garden again.