This week I decided to try a less tropical approach to my vase, using our Native Beach Sunflowers (Helianthus debilis) as the basis for a non tropical look. I thought Blue Willow china would be a not so tropical container for my vase. I have a collection of Blue Willow started by my grandmother a hundred years ago I have been adding to for years. So, I started with the Blue Willow bowl my father referred to as the ‘Creamed Onion Bowl’ a low covered casserole. That didn’t really work out the flowers were too tall or maybe the scale of flowers to bowl was just off. Then, everything got moved into this well used English teapot I bought years ago, one of my favorite pieces. I have never made tea in it, but somebody else did, many times, the interior is stained dark from use. I like antiques with a little patina.
To the Sunflowers I added Soap Aloe (Aloe saponaria) flowers in orange, Red Shrimp Plant (Justicia brandegeana), and some Parrot Flower (Heliconia psittacorum) buds for height, Asparagus Ferns and Asian Sword Ferns for green texture.
After all of this it occurred to me none of these plants would even grow at Disney World in Orlando, Florida! However, it can be proposed they could be grown as annuals. In containers.
Mission completed.
I renovated my big Frangipani vase from last week and the Bromeliads from two weeks ago are still looking good. I think the buds on the Frangipani will open. Here they are again:
Unabashedly tropical.
The Shrub Queen 
Well, it all looks hugely exotic and tropical as far as I’m concerned! Most of your wonderful looking flowers are completely new to me. Beautiful arrangements.
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Thank you, I thought the Sunflowers were not very exotic! The Bromeliads are the flowers that amaze me with their crazy tropical forms.
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I love the sunflowers. DId you grow those from seed?
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Started with plants that reseeded! Have tons of seed.
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Cool can I get some ?
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yes, I noticed this morning there are a lot, probably need to dry out a bit from this rain. I will collect some and let you know.
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How many Bromeliads do you have? Are they repeat bloomers and do they bloom every year?
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I have a terrible tendency to pick up Bromeliads when I find a deal, to the point my husband jokes me about it. No idea how many! Some are repeat bloomers some are just for foliage.
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I just love the flowers as they are so unquic
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unique. (keyboard got away from me)
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Laughing with you! i like the unique as well. There are hundreds of thousands types and many named varieties are absurdly expensive and I have yet to encounter any good advice on placement. Just keep buying mystery plants at garage sales.I have just had a huge (4′ tall by 8′ wide with red foliage) shoot up a flower stalk, about 4′ tall already, will post when it flowers.
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Sounds cool. I think you always want what you can’t have. I have tried several, but not much luck with growing or flowering.
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I think you are too far north, I think I am at the northern edge of hardiness for them.
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Your flowers fit the little teapot just right.
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Thank you
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Terrifically tropical but with such lovely material I too would go down that way. They look lovely in the teapot.
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The colours work really well together – and it was lovely to see them in the blue & white teapot
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Thank you, I love the hot colors in Blue Willow
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Very nice combination – you do such a great job arranging them. Love the heliconia, I have a soft spot for the genus. 🙂
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I love the Heliconias as well, have a few others I am waiting for flowers….
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I’m very fond of your beach sunflowers. The closest equivalent growing along the beaches here on the left coast is a giant coreopsis. I love the soap aloe blooms too – that’s an aloe I’d like to add to my own burgeoning collection.
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Hmm, Giant Coreopsis sounds pretty good! I think you would like the Soap Aloe, it flowers quarterly and uses very little water.
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It looks tropical to me and I love the sunflowers. They grow on the beach? You have a thing for bromeliads like I have for succulents. One just doesn’ t know where to stop. What a darling little teapot.
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Thanks, I am having mixed feelings about the Sunflowers, finding they are biennial and prolific reseeders that are kind of rangy. The good news is they can be cut back and bloom nearly year round. Native to the sand dunes near the beach. And, yes, I clearly have a bromeliad problem.
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I had a long look at the “less tropical” arrangement and decided that it is a lovely mix of tropical and others, but it still feels delightfully tropical to me! Is that Parrot flower the same as a bird of paradise flower?
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Less tropical may be in the eye of the beholder. I think people do call those bird of paradise flower, it is a small 3-4′ tall spreading perennial Heliconia, Bird of Paradise is a Strelitzia.
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