It has been so rain free here the only flowers worth cutting are on the shrubs. My enormous Firebush is packed with bees and butterflies who were none too happy about me stealing their flowers. I chose the silver goblet before I realized I was making a Goblet of Fire. My husband and I are Harry Potter fans and coincidentally I have a family wand. Abracadabra!!!
The silver goblet is an heirloom from my mother, who loved to collect junk. Heirloom may be too strong a word. The goblet is more like something I found while cleaning out her house. I am not sure what became of my copy of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. It is probably around the house somewhere – though, Deathly Hallows looks better with the Firebush!
The Grant family wand. It had never occurred to me that we had a family wand, until today. Some years ago, my father, the geologist, was prospecting in the woods of North Georgia and ran across a water witch. Water witches direct people to the best locations to drill wells. She gave him this wand. Wands are also called divining rods. This particular witch used native Alder branches (Alders grow near streams) to divine where the water was most likely to be located underground. I am not sure how to operate the wand, though I tried when we dug a well at our house in South Florida, no luck from the wand. Perhaps it was too far from home or I am just a muggle.
A closer view:
There are two varieties of Firebush (the tubular flowers) in here..the red ones are the Florida native Hamelia patens var patens; the orange ones (I think) are from the Bahamas – Hamelia patens. People get into arguments about this, ugh. These arguments annoy me, love the plants. Beautiful, tough shrubs that bees and butterflies love. I don’t care where they originated. The yellow flowers are Thyrallis (Galphimia glauca)..This one has several botanical names and is often sold as a native; though it is not. The grey accents are Adonidia Palm flowers. Background red and green foliage are tips from Blanchetiana Bromeliads (red) and Super Fireball Neoregelia (green).
As always, thank you to Cathy at http://www.ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com for hosting. Follow the link for more vases.
Wishing everyone a magical gardening week..muggles or not.
The Shrub Queen 
Beautiful flowers and so unusual.- lovely
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Thank you.
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A beautiful, fiery vase and intriguing story. Wish I had a wand sometimes and not to look for water :D. Have a good week too
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Thanks, Annette, Happy Summer.
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Oh that is brilliant, Amy – most definitely a goblet of fire, and I love your props, including the wand. I have done a bit of informal dowsing -it doesn’t have to be a wand or wooden rod and I mostly used a crystal pendulum
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Thanks..fortunately it rained! no crystals needed.
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👍
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It’s too bad the wand didn’t work – maybe you need to find the right incantation 😉 I like the firebush flowers but I only rarely see the plants for sale here, although I understand they like sun and have low water needs, which would seem to make them well-suited to SoCal (even if my Sunset Western Garden Book elected to ignore the genus). I’m sorry you haven’t received any rain – we haven’t either but then that normal here at this time of year.
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Well, ha! it rained. I think you need some Firebush, called Hummingbird Bush in Texas.
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Those oranges and reds really do conjure (😉) up the image of fire, and the goblet makes it rather magical too. I would like my own magic wand – to magic away my weeds for example!
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Wow! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it worked on weeds..Eradicum?! Pow.
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I like your use of palm flowers in this arrangement.
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Thanks..I love the color..
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Nice fireworks! 🙂
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Thanks Eliza
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That is a very creative pairing. It is nice to have a family wand. We kind of have one, as I found a wand that was tucked into a piece of furniture many years ago.
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Thanks..my father is probably laughing in the great beyond.
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Harry Potter must be very entertaining. He has quite a cult following. I do not keep up with it. Doesn’t he have an elder wand? Is elder like box elder or elderberry?
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He is entertaining, not sure what kind of elder wand.
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Mostly rain free here as well so I would have to be cautious with this fiery arrangement of Firebush! Fun that you have a divining rod. Rumor has it one was used in our neighborhood common area before digging a well to water the grass. (There’s no effort to reduce the amount of grass that needs water, mind you.) Have a good week.
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It finally rained! so happy. The flowers did not spontaneously combust..we would all be better off with less grass….
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That’s good. We had rain too at last.
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A goblet of fire: such a clever name for your arrangement. And the idea of your stealing flowers from the bees and butterflies made me smile. But what is a muggle?
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Harry Potter movies call non magical people muggles.
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