This vase marks the first for February, the month of love. I challenged myself to create a shades of red vase in honor of February.
The combination of plant material is unusual, to say the least, ordinarily (not sure why) I don’t like to combine tropical plants with non tropicals, but this is meant to be love struck pinks.
The construction of the vase is a bit unusual as well, the red container is from Christmas, too lightweight for the thick stemmed Shell Ginger. To conquer this issue, I placed a glass pickle jar inside the red container – it was too tall and I covered the jar with Bromeliad foliage. Here is a closer view:
The pink and white flowers are Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet); these are just about to burst into full bloom, really buds. The center plant is a Zinnia of unknown heritage that looks a lot more pink in the garden. The beige and pink flowers are Texas Vintage Rose Mix Celosia grown from seed supplied by Floret. The green tracery in the background is the flower of Dracaena reflexa. The foliage around the base is from a Blushing Bromeliad (Neoregelia carolinae).
Another close up:
Happy Month of Love!
For more Vases on Monday filled with flowers from all over the world follow this link to Cathy’s blog In A Vase on Monday
The Shrub Queen 
A very pretty arrangement. Your shell ginger is blooming already? I think I mentioned to you that mine had froze back the last two years. It is making up for it and the little bed that they are in is packed. I am hoping for blooms this year.
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It is early for the Shell Ginger and the one blooming gets the most sun, we had a warm December, I guess that is why. They can bloom 3 times a year. Hope yours does the same.
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Mine only seems to bloom every other year. It is variegated, so the focus is on the leaves, but I love flowers.
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I think you are doing really well, the varigated ones rarely flower here and are only planted for foliage,
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Oh, that makes me feel better.
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This is so pretty! I think the world could use A LOT more love, to say the least! 😉
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How ingenious you have been! We would never have known about the innards of the red container if you hadn’t told us. I was admiring the close up photos and thinking how like shells this one plant was and realised of course that that must be the shell ginger! What an amazing plant – Nature never ceases to surprise me!
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That shell ginger is absolutely scrumptious! That it almost looks edible to me possibly signifies that it’s getting close to lunchtime here…
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I had never thought of Shell Ginger as tasty but it smells great and would make a lovely cake decoration, not sure if you can eat the flowers but the root is edible.
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A creative presentation. February pinks/reds are perfect.
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Thank you.
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That is so pretty. I think the idea with the foliage to hide the jar is quite ingenious and very effective. 🙂
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Thanks, Cathy, it is holding up well.
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Beautiful arrangement of flowers.
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Thank you
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