Here’s the collection of blues. The violin bottle belonged to my grandmother, she always kept unusual bottles on her windowsills, some filled with colored water. The footed glass was found in my in-laws house whilst cleaning it out to sell it. For some reason they collected one glass each time they went to an Arts Festival, so there was an odd collection of ones, many of them pottery wine glasses. The corked bottle holds dried rose petals I collected from bouquets my husband brought home.
I started with this one, my husband came in and said, ‘It looks like the violin is playing music’ – maybe the blues! The flower in this bottle is from a Miniata Bromeliad (Aechmea miniata) These are very easy to grow and bloom regularly in July. A simple Heliconia leaf has been added to the bottle. Here are the Miniatas in the garden.
The footed vase has a sprig of Frangipani and a few clippings of our native Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens)
Here is what has me singing the Bromeliad Blues. I bought this grey foliaged Bromeliad this spring at a Master Gardeners plant sale. No one knew what it was, but I liked the shape and foliage (the leaves have a deep pink tip) and it was $6, so I bought it. Check out this flower, I think this is a Bilbergia ‘Soundwaves’, but I am not sure!
The Shrub Queen 
Love the Bromeliads! For some reason, the rabbits like to eat mine.
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Find some sharper ones! have you tried red pepper flakes?
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I’m afraid the flakes would wash off from the sprinkler. I have tried covering them and finally dug them up and put them in pots up high.
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You will enjoy this, my neighbor has been complaining about something eating his fallen mangoes. Last night I was walking my dogs and a pot bellied pig strolled out of his backyard! A stray .pot bellied pig at that.
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That’s hilarious! I bet that’s the last thing they thought was eating their mangoes. Lucky pig.
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Happy pig, turned out it belonged to someone nearby and returned home.
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Yes, but now he knows where the sweet stuff is.
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Love your collection of vases!
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Your bottles remind me of those my mother collected. And I love the violin one in particular…I agree it does look like it is playing music!
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Thank you
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The collection of blue bottles is a brilliant starting point – and the violin one is so unique! Definitely and arrangement that is singong the blues – thanks for sharing it 🙂
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Thank you
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I love the flowers and those blue bottles! I will try to send a picture of a plant that made me tear up in Italy. Maybe you can help me find it.
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Thanks, I will keep collecting bottles and bromeliads
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Your bromeliads are rocking those blues! I have a few bromeliads, including one Billbergia, but I rarely get flowers. I expect they like your climate better than mine!
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Thank you, I have found some bloom every year and some every three, that Bilbergia is new, one I have had for three years has never bloomed but has several pups?
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Such exotics to my eyes. Those blue bottles are ideal but whoever thought of making a bottle in the shape of a violin? Mad.
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Thanks, the violin bottles are actually fairly common, a decanter from the 1930s -40s.
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Wow I have never seen one before.
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Probably an American thing.
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Such a collection of exotics..lovely quality flowers…and love the theme of blue vases too.
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Thank you
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[…] Jul18 by theshrubqueen […]
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First of all: lovely flowers. Then the blue bottles: I have one – like the one on the right, b/g, in your first picture. But surely that violin-shaped one takes the cake! So pretty.
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Thank you.
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the blue bromeliad looks like Aechmea Little Harv. If you haven’t found an ID yet.
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Thanks, Tim. I think it is Little Harv or a close relative.
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