Last week I challenged myself to create a colorful, informal vase with gardenias. As usual, I chatted back and forth with Cathy at http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com, our IAVOM host. We were talking about my dearth of pastels in the garden. The challenge was not a teapot vase – but one filled with pastel colors. To see more vases follow the link to Cathy’s blog.
A closer view:
It took a while to suss out a total pastel palette. I suppose the light here is so strong I tend towards using higher colors in the garden and have a few pastels. Many are serendipitous (Weeds!)
The long pink flower and foliage is chandelier plant (Medinilla cummingi); pink flowers are annual vinca (Vinca rosea), a perennial here and a weed; yellow flowers hanging over the edge are snapdragons, surprising me by coming up from last years winter annuals seed; blue flowers are plumbago (Plumbago auriculata); green flowers are Envy zinnias; purple backed leaves and flowers are Arabian Lilacs (Vitex trifolia); coral spikes are Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea).
The teapot is from an antiquing venture long ago, teacups are from my grandmother, cow creamer was a gift from someone and the tole tray belonged to my mother.
Tea, anyone?
I have been baking again. This is vegan. Vanilla cupcake stuffed with pineapple reduction and pineapple buttercream frosting.
The Shrub Queen 
Ooh yummy!
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This week is different from your usual hot colors. The flowers look great with your staging.
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I am feeling soothed! Thanks
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A challenge well-met! 🙂 I love how the Medinilla drapes down like wisps of steam from the spout.
If you’re serving those cupcakes, I’m definitely coming for tea, yum!
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Thanks, Eliza. I have made these cupcakes with mango. Good stuff.
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I’m drooling just thinking about it!
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Well done, Amelia, for rising to the challenge – what a delightful tea tray, although it’s a shame there weren’t any of your cupcakes on it too! 😉 I can see how a challenge would make you (and I know it would work for me too) look at your garden in a different way and find things you mightn’t otherwise have used. I love the plumbago and the chandelier plant arching over the edge, and I have not seen a pink vinca before. A delightful result!
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Thank you, Cathy. Most of my Blue Willow china belonged to my grandmother (b 1882) is too cracked to use for food. Pink Vinca is common here, though I wonder if it is too susceptible to fungus to grow there. Needs super well drained soil.
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I suppose that is one of the problems with older china that has been well used. There is a large Chinese dinner service in the loft at my Mum’s house which used to come out at Christmas, along with some silver cutlery, but it hasn’t been use, except for a soup tureen, which she has a plant in! 😀 The blue vinca is a bit of a garden escapee here, although noy in a widespread way, but I have never come across a pink version – but looking now, I see there is a pink annual variety
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It is. some of this is glued together and I have it on shelves. Vinca is an interesting plant – vinca alkaloids are used in chemotherapy.
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Gosh – don’t think I knew that…
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Okay, even though I just finished breakfast two hours ago, you’ve made me hungry again…Great job on the pastel arrangement! I immediately recognized the chandelier plant as a Medinilla – I have a Medinilla myriantha in my own garden but there’s just one large flower I can’t bring myself to cut.
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Thanks, Kris. The Medinillia has been great, almost non-stop flowers.
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That cupcake sounds and looks so yummy! And all those pastels are amazing in your beautiful vase this week.
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Thank you, I am enjoying the pineapple frenzy.
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Oh my goodness! This is gorgeous! So lovely to see your pastels all together in a teapot. And with all the trimmimgs too…. that cake looks so scrummy! Your teapot is beautiful and the cow creamer must be a collector’s item for sure. I think it is the pink vinca that brings all the pastels together so nicely. And what is the daisy-like flower top left?
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Thank you, Cathy. I think that is my favorite teapot. The daisy flower is Bidens alba, a native flower here and really appropriate for wild and weedy Wednesday! They make 1200 seeds per plant!
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Yikes! That is a lot of baby plants… Keep picking it for vases! 😉
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Oh well done Amelia! That tray and it’s contents is a most delightful vision. I think that I’m the opposite when it comes to colour preferences although I have been converted to orange over the years. The cupcake looks most yummy indeed.
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Thank you, Anna. It took me a long time to like orange. The light here is so different. I was in New England last week and it seemed dark to me in broad daylight!
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It is difficult to imagine that vinca as a weed. I have never seen it perform well. It had been commonly available here for many years, although it did not perform adequately. I notice less of it nowadays. Vinca major really is a weed though.
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It is strange to see the vinca popping up on roadsides and abandoned lots, but there it is>
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It would be even more strange for someone who has never seen it perform well even in cultivation.
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