I was in the mood for a cottagey vase this week and set out to find some less tropically mad flowers. Spell check seems to think cottagey is not a word. While roses are out of the question (I choose not to torment myself) I like cottage garden flowers and always have some zinnias going. The heat dome frying my garden finally dissipated and it actually rained!! Hopes were high for some new flowers. I found some beauties and some beasts.
The beauties in the vase are the Zinnias and Beautyberry. I selected seeds last year hoping to get orange and pink Zinnias and here they are! The Beautyberry (Calliocarpa americana) intrigues me. I had this shrub in my garden 600 miles north of here and it refused to grow in the sun and did not produce berries until November. In Florida, I have berries in August, it thrives in full sun and happily lives in sugar sand. It is a head scratcher. Oh, Copper Fennel is also a beauty. This one lives through July (a major accomplishment) and is flowering in August!
The beasts are the ferns and the daisies. The ferns are the invasive Asian Sword Ferns (Nephrolepis brownii) I’ll admit to liking these, pulling them out by the bag and enjoying a few swords in vases from time to time. They aren’t too beastly in the sugar sand, but I can imagine with unlimited water things could get ugly. The other beast is Bidens alba, ironically a valued native pollinator flower – it produces so many seeds it is difficult to keep in one place. The butterflies do love it.
The Zinnias with a bit of purple Beautyberry and chartruese Fennel flowers.
The beastly Asian Sword Ferns and white Bidens alba.
I am dreaming of cooler weather and some more rain.
Visit Cathy at Ramblinginthegarden by following the link where more vases full of weekly garden treasures can be found.
The Shrub Queen 
Beautyberry! That is rad! They are new to me. I had never seen them directly until Woodland Gnome of Our Forest Garden sent some to me from Williamsburg.
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Did they grow?
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Oh yes; now they will need to be cut back this winter.
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You’ll have to tell Kris P!
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done
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You have a cottage look going. I miss my Beauty Berry. The ones I have seen up north are dark purple. I am still stuck on the mountain waiting for the house to be finished and the leaves are turning and the sun is lower. I’m not used to fall coming so early. Glad your heat broke.
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Thanks, I was in New England last December and could not believe how dark it was at 4 pm. Enjoy a real fall!
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Oh yes, we lived in CT for two year and it got very dark early. I have a lot of adjusting to do. And you know when you are in sunshine most days, rainy weeks are hard to take.
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That is very true I think I have been in Florida too long. Cloudy freaks both of us out after a day or two.
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Sorry Amelia, but it still looks tropical to me!! I love the purple of callicarpa, which can grow here but needs more than one plant for cross pollination. Zinnia gorgeous as usual, and your ferns always set a vase off well – all lovely
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Thanks. It must be the colors. I don’t think that is true about pollination.
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The colours and the ferns. It may have just been a particular variety of callicarpa
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I love the cottage garden look in an arrangement. Free and loose! Your beautyberry is the largest I’ve ever seen, it clearly is happy there. I love sword fern as an accent, similar to our Christmas fern, which is evergreen here.
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Thanks, Eliza. I really should try Beautyberry bread. I have enough berries. The evergreens in New England are so wonderful…
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I love the vivid colors of this arrangement, Amelia. As always I envy you the beautyberry. I’ve yet to see a Callicarpa here in SoCal, much less find one offered for sale. I’ve been tempted to go ahead and order a plant by mail but then those experiments rarely end well.
https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/
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Thanks, Kris a little vivid in summer is always good.
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Would you like me to send you one? It is not very pretty now, and is actually quite scrawny, chlorotic and nibbled, but has a good root base. You can send me a message with your address.
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I should mention that, although it grew from a cutting (pruning scraps), the original grew from a wild seedling, so is not a cultivar, as you would find for sale in a mail order catalogue. I specifically wanted to grow the simple species rather than a cultivar.
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I am not sure what I have this seems to be a more vibrant color than the ones from further north. There is also a naturally occurring pink berry here.
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Mine are quite vibrant pink, but not quite as purplish pink as yours are. The are from the coast of Virginia, which is the extreme northeastern corner of their natural range. Could yours be feral progeny of a garden variety, or are they wild?
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I bought the plant from a native nursery but the color is typical of Florida beauty berry. I had them in Atlanta they were a much darker color.
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That’s very kind of you, Tony. However, I’m in the middle of working out what shrubs I can keep and which I still need to remove to be in compliance with the Los Angeles County’s “defensible space clearance” ordinance for high fire risk areas so it’s not the right time for me to add new shrubs anyway.
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Okay; I can find a home for it within our landscapes. I received six originally, but they grow somewhat easily from cuttings. (I should not grow any more cuttings.)
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I had Beautyberry growing at the edge of our orchard in New Hampshire. I guess you could say it was a gift from Mother Nature as I didn’t plant it. It looks great with the red and pink zinnias.
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The range of Beautyberry is amazing. I think the berry color is darker in New England. Thank you, I am enjoying the zinnias.
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Well, the ferns may look beastly to you, but I think they are wonderful. I couldn’t grow anything ferny here in summer, but in spring the woods are full of them. Strangely, Beautyberry grows here too, but I have only seen it thriving in a well-watered garden and it still looks out of place. Naturally, I love the zinnias! I am going to dedicate even more space to them next year. Do you still have the names of these?
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I secretly like the ferns, they grow up palm trunks. How interesting you see Beautyberry. I was considering baking a cake with the berries. The zinnias are Benarys Giant. This is the second year and I collected the seed last summer – so, I guess that is what they are.
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Oh what a great combination of elements! You’ve given me some fodder, because I have many of those items blooming here, too. Ferns and Zinnias and Fennel flowers are such great items for arrangements!
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Thank you! It’s strange to have the same fodder!
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