Category Archives: flower arrangements

In A Vase on Monday – Postcards from the Edge

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I should call this ‘In a Cachepot on Monday’. This is one of my favorite containers, an antique Portmerion cachepot with Lilies in a deep burgundy russet color. I bought the cachepot on one of my many ‘junk store’ missions with my mother. It is sitting on my parent’s favorite marble table with a fish tile from another mission.

My husband’s father was a great collector of Christmas Cactus. When he passed on I inherited most of the collection. It took me awhile to figure out how to take care of them so this is the last survivor. I always feel like when this one blooms, it is Glenn giving me a wink and a smile from the great beyond.

Joining the Christmas Cactus are a bit of Blue Tropical Plumbago (P. auriculata) and some Sweet Begonia (B. alba) I have no idea what type of Christmas Cactus I have.

Hopefully it blooms a little longer.

In A Vase on Monday – Tropical Tussie Mussies

My mother always enjoyed making (really me making them while she watched) Tussie Mussies, she just thought they were ‘so cute’. I seem to have an abundance of not very long stemmed flowers so I decided to put together a Tussie Mussie or two.

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Tussie Mussie is a term for a small bouquet of flowers that has been around since medieval times, the Victorians used the selected flower type to send a message to the recipient of the Tussie Mussie. Each flower in the bouquet had a meaning. In reading the dictionary of flower meanings,  I found that Victorian England was not awash in the plants I have here in Tropic Florida. The only plant messages I could find in my Tussie Mussies are Dwarf Sunflower means adoration and Fern means magic. So, I am saying to you with flowers – I adore the magic of my garden. I can cope with that. Oddly enough, in Victorian flower dictionaries there were meanings for chickweed. If chickweed appeared in a flower arrangement I received, I would tend to think there was something wrong. The meaning from the dictionary – I cling to thee. Beware the man that sends chickweed bouquets.

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This arrangement is in a tequila shooter from my niece’s wedding; my tequila shooting days are long over but it makes a great little vase.

The plants are Turks Cap (A native mallow in Florida) the red flower, the darker red flowers are Red Shrimp Plant (Justicia brandegeana) a leaf of a Copperleaf (Acalphya wilkesiana ‘Raggedy Ann’) and a few Boston Fern fronds.

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I have a pair of tequila shooters, this one has a Dwarf Red Ixora, Beach Sunflower (Helianthus debilis), Coral Vine (Antigonon leptopus) and a backdrop of Hawaiian Snow Bush (Breynia nivosa)

Here’s hoping everyone is adoring the magic of the garden, this first week of 2016!