Category Archives: flower arrangements

In a Vase on Monday – Sunday Mother’s Day Madness

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It’s Mother’s Day in the US this Sunday. As I collect flowers, my thoughts are always with my mother, the Greatest Generation Southern Belle, Miss Betty, who would have adored In a Vase on Monday. I am certain if she was still with us (she would be 98 years old) I would be printing out blog posts and mailing them to her. Computers were not happening in her world, ever.

My father’s mother, Blanche (yes) was the Blue Willow collector. I suspect there is a gene as I love the pattern and china. The teapot was found on a shopping mission with my mother.

The Sunday Madness? A Food and Travel magazine contacted me a couple of months ago – soon after the historic freeze, and they wanted to photograph food in my garden. I agreed. And am madly putting things right. This week I am baking! I will share more as things progress.

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A closer view. The white flowers spilling down the side are Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata). Orange flowers are Mexican Honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera). Blue flowers are Plumbago (P. auriculata). White spikes are White Flame Salvia. Scent is added by chartreuse culinary dill flowers.

Foliage is ‘Mammey’ Crotons and Asian Sword Ferns.

Please send me positive vibes for the photo shoot. To see more vases, visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden!!

In a Vase on Monday – Fall into Spring with a side of weird

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It is still officially spring in South Florida…but we already hit 90 F/ 32 C and the humidity is rising. There is always some point when the heat and humidity hit critical mass and I begin pining for fall. We are definitely not there yet, however, the colors in this vase reminded me of my future fall aspirations early.

There are some strange things going on in the garden. The mango trees that were hit by frost in early February have all come back, seemingly from the dead and are producing flowers. This usually happens in early February followed by fruit in June. We have dead foliage, new foliage and flowers on the same tree. I am puzzled, but think I should fertilize them. So weird. Creatures are eating the buds off the zinnias I planted in tall pots for cutting – giraffe rabbits??

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The closer view. This is mostly flowers from trees and shrubs. I really enjoy cutting from these plants as they are rarely seen in this venue. The white flowers are White Geiger tree (Cordia boisserie). Yellow flowers are Esperanza tree (Tecoma stans). Orange tubular flowers are from the native Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) Red fruit with foliage is Brush Cherry (Syzygium paniculatum), a common hedge here. The bronze foliage is an unnamed coleus bought locally.

I’m adding to the weird by buying obscure tropical vegetable seeds to grow over the summer. I planted edible Hibiscus (Roselles) recently (the calyx is the edible part, tastes like cranberries) Yard long and winged bean seeds go into pots soon..more weird to come…

That is all from South Florida. Thank you to Cathy for hosting IAVOM for all these years. Follow the link to her blog RamblingintheGarden to take the garden tour.

In a Vase on Monday – Beachcombing the Garden

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There is a strange thing that happens when you live near a beach – you don’t go very often after a while and there are a lot of shells around the house and in the garden.

Perhaps your beachcombing capacity reaches critical mass when your environs are full. Hmm. This is something to ponder. I had no trouble finding a few seashells to go with the Shell Ginger flower for my Monday vase. There are many more shells in the garden, however, when I look around I imagine lining the shell walkways with goddess stones (above circular disk) Then I imagine how many it would take!

Here’s a closer view

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This vase has a whirling dervish vibe. The winding Fern is Asparagus Fern, this particular type of Fern used to be grown for floral arrangements around here. It escaped and is now considered an invasive plant. It is oddly thorny, so I like to get rid of it before it gets out of hand. A win win situation as I also like to use it in flower arrangements. The pink flower is a Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet). White flowers are Begonia nelumbiifolia, Lotusleaf Begonia. A pink champagne bottle is a leftover from a visiting friend.

That’s all from my South Florida garden this Monday..hoping the clouds turn into rain! Visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to see the garden tour.

In a Vase on Monday – Sage Advice

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I am joining Cathy and the intrepid vasers again this Monday sharing a Vase of flowers collected from our gardens. To view more vases follow this link to Cathy’s blog RamblingintheGarden.

My vase features all types of sage grown in my garden. My advice – plant some!

It seems to be a very good spring for sage in my garden. I planted some new plants a few weeks ago and they are thriving to the point I need to cut the flowers. The bees were not happy with me, but I emerged, clippers in hand, from the flowers unscathed. The annual sages seemed to have enjoyed the rare freezing temperature we had in February followed by a lot of rain and popped up all over the garden. They are already producing seed. For some reason, they are mostly red.

The close up:

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Sage is, of course, Salvia. This is Salvia with a few wildflower friends, a side of Golden Dewdrop in a mason jar with a dried bromeliad leaf collar. Only in South Florida!

The red spikes are Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea). Blue flowers are Mystic Blue’ Salvia. White spikes are ‘White Flame’ Salvia. White daisies are Bidens alba, cream colored spikes are Juba Bush (Iresine diffusa) These are both wildflowers. Chartreuse foliage is Golden Dewdrop (Duranta erecta). I also have River Sage (Salvia misella) in the garden. This is reportedly a dense mat forming native that grows everywhere and out competes weeds. Bahahaha, need I say more. It is not vaseworthy. More Sage Advice.

Thanks to Cathy for hosting. Happy Gardening.

I will sign off with the fact that it is so dry here I am seriously considering going outside for a rain dance, the sky looks so promising!!

In a Vase on Monday – Ta Da, Spring!

Spring is asserting itself in my garden. Warmer weather and a few showers have brought the more tropical plants back to life. I usually have Shell Ginger in February, but this year it waited until late March to produce flowers. I enjoy these unusual flowers and am happy to see them again.

The flowers and foliage in this vase are all from the most protected part of the garden. These plants weren’t even burned, surprising me. The Strangler Fig that stands sentinel over this area took the brunt of the cold weather and has almost replaced its foliage. The tips of the branches are still naked, there is still time for a full recovery. Fingers crossed.

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A closer view: pink flowers are Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet). This is an interesting ginger, edible roots, but apparently not as good as culinary ginger (I can’t grow that for some perverse reason) the leaves are used to wrap fish and vegetables and then steam them. I rolled up the excess leaves and put them inside the vase to hold the heavy stems – they smell wonderfully gingery.

The tropical leaf is from a Split Leaf Philodendron (Philodendron selloum). The windy sticks are from Asparagus Ferns. I cut these to get them out of my way as they are sending up shoots that are very thorny. I liked the way they looked, so they were added to the arrangement and the trimmings were stacked in front – for a horizontal line. Just for fun.

That’s all from my garden this Monday. Happy Gardening and thanks to Cathy for hosting – follow this link to her blog RamblingintheGarden.

In a Vase on Monday – Celebrating Americans

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I’m not sure what possessed my garden to produce red, white and blue flowers this week. Perhaps a quiet celebration of No Kings on a floral scale. I’ll take it! I was astonished to see some 9 million fellow Americans staging peaceful protests yesterday. Just Wow.

Spring is progressing and the landscape is slowly recovering from the February freeze. The resilience of plants never fails to amaze me. Many things that we grow here are labeled not frost tolerant – it seems maybe they are! The truly tropical plants like Frangipani are gone, the insides of the trunks look like a black dessicated cord, I have never seen anything like it. The cold weather inspired some other things to flower, I think.

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The Red Amaryllis in the vase appeared from the cosmos. I have never planted these and suddenly there it was. I decided to cut the stem because it was too windy for the flowers to last long.

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Spilling over the edge of the vase are Sweet Begonias (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’) a stalwart here. The red, white and blue flowers are from a bromeliad, Billbergia vittata, these last longer in the vase than in the garden and have been flowering off and on for two months. My new Salvia, Mystic Blue, is having a good run and I am enjoying cutting it. The foliage in the vase is a chopped up frond from a Cabbage Palm (Palmetto sabal) I trimmed the frond and stuffed what I chopped off around the edges, not sure Martha Stewart would approve.

That’s all from my garden. Happy Spring Monday to all. Many thanks to Cathy for hosting. Follow this link to her blog to see more vases. RamblingintheGarden

In a Vase on Monday – Scents of the Sugar Belle

My South Florida garden continues tutoring me in the finer points of growing things. Today I learned about black citrus aphids. The hard way, discovering the new growth on my Sugar Belle Mandarin orange tree covered in tiny black bugs – who knew aphids were black?

I decided to plant an orange tree after reading that the new variety of mandarin, Sugar Belle, is reportedly resistant to the scourge of Florida citrus, Huanglongbing bacterial disease. This terrible sounding thing causes citrus greening, basically ruining the fruit. I planted one of these trees last fall. It is settling in very well and has too many flowers on it, so I liberated one for a Vase, cleared the bugs off and will give it a dose of Neem spray later. Fingers crossed that clears up the problem.

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Here is a closer view. The orange blossoms are in the foreground. The fragrance has permeated the house. It has a sweet scent and the range of travel is impressive. I am also enjoying my new Salvia plants again. In blue, Mystic Blue and the white is White Flame. I plucked a varigated leaf from the Pie Crust Croton and added some climbing Asparagus Fern for contrast.

Thanks to Cathy for hosting. To see more vases and celebrations of spring in the garden follow this link RamblingintheGarden

Happy Spring Gardening!!

In a Vase on Monday – Salvia – How Do I Love Thee?

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Oh yes, let me count the ways…heat tolerant, nonstop flowers, short lived perennials, thrives in sugar sand. Elizabeth, need I go on?

My love affair with Salvia continues. The freeze or drought or something lambasted what remained of the White Flame and Mystic Blue Salvia in my garden, so I replenished my supply. This involves meeting a friend for Thai food, then traveling to our local favorite https://pindersnursery.com and stocking up. Of course, a few other items were purchased…and in the vase.

A closer view:

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The white flowers are White Flame Salvia. Red and coral flowers are from the reseeding annual Salvia coccinea. The buds and bigger leaves are from Mystic Blue Salvia. Possibly my all time favorite. A few stems broke off the plants from the nursery, so I am hoping the roots continue to grow in the vase. And I will have more!

Purple flowers are new to the garden, Heliotrope. I am told these don’t like heat – we will soon find out about that. The fragrance from these plants is used to scent baby powder, reportedly calming. I have had these for a few days and can’t smell anything. Could be the oak pollen or perhaps I am calm. One never knows.

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The foliage is from Golden Dewdrop (Duranta erecta) with a few fronds of native Boston Ferns. The vase is from my florist collection.

Happy Spring Monday from my pollen infested garden. I am hoping the incoming rain clears the air. Please visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to see more vases.

In a Vase on Monday – Hong Kong Orchid

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I like a catchy title and the name of the biggest flower here serves its purpose well. The lavendar flowers are from the Hong Kong Orchid tree next door. The tree is actually my neighbors, planted by her grandmother in the 1960s, so it has been around for a while. I filched a few flowers that are encroaching. It’s one of those love/hate types of trees. In March the sight of this tree covered in these Lavendar orchid shaped flowers makes me sigh with gardening pleasure. Later in the year it drops a million pods and then the seedlings come up with summer rains. Then I am sighing from the effort of trying to remove all the little seedlings that seem to have suction cups attached to their roots.

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A little closer view. The Hong Kong Orchids are Bauhinia purpurea. The white flowers are from Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’). Blue flowers are Plumbaga auriculata. Burgundy spears are from Aechmea ‘Burgundy’ Bromeliad. Ferny bits are the creepy Asparagus Fern. The vase is from the Ute Indian tribe in the Southwestern Us.

It seems to have started raining again. The forecasters are saying our weather pattern is shifting to La Nina which means cooler weather, more rain and fewer hurricanes. This sounds good to me. I am slowly reclaiming the garden from the freeze of a month ago. One mango tree is dead, one is coming back and a third the jury is still out. I decapitated the papaya tree, so fingers crossed it comes back.

Happy Monday from South Florida. Visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to see more vases!

In a Vase on Monday – The Tropical Renaissance

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After a morose month in the garden, I am finally witnessing the rebirth of the tropical vibe. It is such a relief to find bromeliads and tropical begonias flowering and the not really cold hardy palm is so fine I filched a frond. I found some green sprouts on my terrifyingly brown mango tree. Fingers still crossed for the mango.

A closer view:

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Another shot, This is kind of a POW thing.

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The red, yellow and blue flowers are from Billbergia vittata, a bromeliad that is obviously cold hardy. I would like to know the variety, but have no clue! Red and black (yea, weird) foliage is from Pie Crust Croton (Codieum varigatum) White flowers are Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’) this is a very common winter bedding plant here. I usually have them year round and take cuttings for new ones as needed. The frond providing background drama is from the native Thatch Palm (Thrinax radiata). These are so slow growing it is laughable. I bought one about ten years ago – it is not 3 feet tall yet.

I am pleased to report it rained! And more is in the forecast. And I have tomatoes. Life is getting better in the garden.

Follow this link RamblingintheGarden to visit Cathy and hear about her garden and find links to vases from other gardeners celebrating early spring…