Last week I found myself a bit overloaded with work. One landscape design project in South Florida, another 600 miles north. Palm trees on one plan, Azaleas on another. My brain is as crowded with plants as my garden. Both needed some pruning. The Firebush was looking overgrown, so I wanted to cut some flowers to use in the arrangement, only to find really weird bugs on the foliage I didn’t want in the house. I dumped most of the cuttings into a recycling bag.
The rest went into my vase. The Soap Aloe was looking really weird with the flowering Ixora.
Yes, contrast lacking there? I think so. The Soap Aloe went into the vase.
The Soap Aloe (Aloe saponaria) and one stem of Firebush (Hamelia patens) are joined by: in red, Red Shrimp Plants (Justicia brandegeana); a few Parrotflowers (Heliconia psittacorum); and some Asparagus Ferns.
My brain needed some additional pruning. Palm trees on which plan??
If you would like to see more vases from around the world, follow this link, on Monday morning:ramblinginthegarden
The Shrub Queen 
I love the strange pinkness of your soap aloe and it goes well with the Firebush and asparagus ferns.
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Strange pinkness is a good description. Coral pink, perhaps.
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Fabulous vase and strange flowers I never get to see so this was a delight….love that aloe….fascinating flower!
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Thank you, there are some truly weird things growing around here.
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A good use of prunings. Your jobs are really far apart.
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Agreed.
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Oh, you work on landscape design?Do you work for yourself or are you employed by a company? Is that full-time? No wonder your head is full of plants if you have other people’s gardens to think of as well as your own. You have such a good eye, as your choice of companions for the Soap Aloe in the vase shows
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Yes, I have worked for myself since 1990. And thank you, I am a flower lover. Wayyy too many plants in my head.
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😀
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Gorgeous colours Amy. And I love the ixora. Brain prunings indeed. My head is always stuffed with plants, it’s an occupational hazard of being a gardener. Better than some friends of mine whose brains are stuffed with clothes. Now that is a waste of brain space.
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Thanks, Liz. One day a flower is going to fall out of my ear..and it won’t be from Boden..
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I love the soap aloe flowers and find I need to add some of those plants to my garden. Ditto the Ixora, although I think it begged for water here the last time I tried it. Best wishes with the projects!
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Thanks, Soap Aloe is too easy to grow and reproduces a lot. Ixoras don’t really need that much water, I use HollyTone a couple of times a year to keep them green. Not sure about your soil, mine is nearly neutral and they like acid.
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The soap aloe looks very good in the vase. It must be hard working on several gardens at a time – good luck, and hope you don’t put the azaleas in the wrong plan! 😉
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Thanks, my brain will be back in tropical mode soon.
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Wow, you’re being pulled in opposite directions! Hope you settle soon. 🙂
Love those heliconia. I think if I lived in SoFL, I’d have a vast collection of them, all sorts and sizes!
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Soon, Heliconias are a double edged sword, great or gross!
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That’s one gorgeous use of prunings! I’ve found my thinking much clearer since the lobotomy.
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I think yours is the weirdest one I have seen so far this week! Asparagus fern is exquisite! I never would have thought to cut aloe flowers because they look so good out in the landscape. I mean, they are too showy, and only bloom once, so I would feel badly about taking them in.
Okay, now that I look at it again, I get what you mean by the lack of contrast. I never would have made it as a designer.
You know, the aloe and heliconia are such striking flowers that they would look nice alone in a bud vase too. Well, again, I am certainly no designer.
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the flowers in the vase look made to go together; living up to your usual tropical, exotic mix.
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Thanks, complete serendipity. I ordered some crazy Lavendar Cactus Zinnia. Green Envy was sold out.
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This makes for a stylish arrangement. Love the soap aloe. Enjoy your projects.
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I hear you. My brain would get addled too. (Oh, what am I saying? My brain is permanently addled.) Lovely arrangement!
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Thank you, working in Canada would really boggle my mind!
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You might like it! We are very polite and generally considerate, except when your president threatens us and bullies our prime minister!
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I am sure I would like it now! And I am sure you would not like to see what I think about our President in writing!
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Ha ha…
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Cynthia. I don’t even want to put it in writing😀
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I hear you, sister.
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All the colors are much like our weather now…hot, hot, hot.
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I was wondering if you were eating the lamb kabobs alfresco?
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I grill outdoors and then head back in to enjoy the A/C. 😀 I walk five miles a day and that is all the heat I can take.
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