For this week’s vase, I’ve picked flowers from my garden that to me, simply shout “high summer!”
Pink garden phlox (P. paniculata), 
pinwheels of black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’), goldenrod (Solidago sp.), 
little jewels of striped mallow (Malva sylvestris), white flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata) and spider flower (Cleome hassleriana).
For greens, I’ve used Hosta ‘Blue Angel’ and Geranium macrorrhizum foliage.
The phlox, black-eyed Susan and wild goldenrod are perennials that come back every year. The mallow, cleome and nicotiana are self-sowing annuals that I encourage to return every spring. I’ve done very little planting these past few years as my gardens are full to brimming and it would be madness to add more. I pretty much let Nature take care of the planting and I do my best to keep up with the maintenance. If it weren’t for the use of mulch, I’d be in over my head!
Thanks to Cathy at Rambling In the Garden, who hosts a weekly meme to showcase what is blooming in our gardens by creating arrangements to enjoy inside our homes. Wander over to see what gardeners all over the world are arranging this week. Feel free to join in, sharing your own weekly vase with a link to Cathy’s blog.
Eliza Waters 
Oh Eliza, I am left speechless admiring this beauty you’ve brought together! Such color! Such a variety of forms! I just love your vase this week. Nature does quite well with just the littlest assistance from us. I love your style ❤ ❤ ❤
Thanks so very much, I’m flattered! 🙂 I’ve really learned how to ride on Nature’s coat tails, lol! ;-D
Is there a more stylish or interesting ride, Eliza?
😀
Sooo colorful:)
Yes, I decided to go ‘bold’ today! 🙂
Oh this is very English country garden. It wouldn’t look out of place gracing a farmhouse such as Charleston, the home of the artist Vanessa Bell. Just beautiful.
Thank you so much, Sarah. What a wonderful compliment!
A lovely arrangement of high summer’s bright beauties!
Thanks, Val. I have so many ‘hot’ colors in my garden now, pink next to orange, next to red, oh my! I love the exuberance. 🙂
Me too Eliza! Although I do miss blues …
Not many blues in August, except maybe annual salvia. S. guaranitica is the bomb! 😉
Eliza, this arrangement is so artistic. You are really so talented. And, I love the vase.
Thank you so much, Micheal! You flatter me so. 😉
It certainly shouts high summer, and conjures up the exuberance and energy of the season. All the gentle pastels from the June perennials have vanished, leaving these fantastic vibrant colours to fight it out between them! Your vase of flowers looks lovely!
Thank you so much. I just popped over to your site and got a delicious eyeful – your gardens are fantastic!
What color!
Smokin’ hot, huh? LOL! 😀
Beautiful! I love that you included Goldenrod. I have all of these in my garden (except the malva), but hate to cut flowers so I just admire them in the garden – only my nicotiana is lime. I spent some time in my garden today, too – a rare treat these days. This arrangement is indeed “high summer” – so well expressed. A riot, a climax. Pinwheels, whirls, hot pink, hot yellow. Last evening I enjoyed the bats swooping over the garden in the fading light and the song of crickets which is becoming more pronounced. It is high summer and I used to feel so sad this time of year thinking “oh, summer is ending” but now I look forward to tiki bars and painting Eliza. I hope you have a winter escape planned for this year?
Thank you, Kathy. Yes, we are at the pinnacle, or just the down side of it. I’m loving the crickets and katydids at night. One of my favorite sounds of summer. It is what I think of in winter. I would love to get away like you do, but haven’t planned anything (so far at least). 😉 You heading back to Cedar Key or someplace new?
Back to Cedar Key Eliza – a very happy place. I hope you get away at least for a little while. Winter does have its charms but is just a wee bit too long.
I hope so, too. Our winter is WAY too long!
So very lovely Eliza, I hope it’s not too hot over there. Mulch is a wonderful thing and something we do twice a year with lucerne.
Thank you Karen. Not hot at all, this past week has been beautiful with cool, dry and sunny weather – perfect in my book. We have maybe 4 or 5 weeks before the temps. will turn dramatically cooler – not in a hurry for that! What is lucerne?
It is a bit like sugar cane or pea straw, except it doesn’t blow away in the wind and feeds the soil without having to add fertiliser as it breaks down.
Thanks for enlightening me, we don’t have that here, at least not in the New England.
Another beautiful vase, Eliza! And to think you just maintain. it must take great restraint not to add more flowers.
Thank you! It was hard at first, but I’ve disciplined myself. Sometimes I cave, in weakness, then I get home and realize I have no place to put my new plant! I buy a few annuals for my porch and a small bed by the driveway, so that gives me a boost every spring. 🙂
That’s the thing, that itch to plant in the spring…
Wow – stunning beauty!
Thank you, Fi!
Very beautiful.
Thank you very much, Steve. 🙂
Simply gorgeous, Eliza. I’m growing phlox for the first time this year and can’t over how much zing it gives the garden.
Thank you, Barbara. Phlox really does add zing to the August garden with all those lovely hybrids to choose from!
That is such a lovely full vase, and a lot of summer exuberance in your flowers. The goldenrod looks great with the pinks and oranges, and adds a lot of fine lacy texture. My campanulas seem to be suffering a lot from the drought, I don’t see the usual blooms this summer, so I’m enjoying looking at yours.
Thank you, Hannah. I hope you get some rain soon, this drought has gone on too long!
I am running out of words to tell you how beautiful your garden vases are. They are.
Thank you so much, Dor. If I lived closer, I’d bring one one over to you! 🙂
My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw the first photo – what a wonderful array of colour, Eliza. It all comes together so naturally and you make it look so easy! Thanks for sharing
Thank you, Cathy. Those colours do fairly shout summer, don’t they? 🙂
What a magnificent display of August!! Perfection.
Thank you so much, C!
Absolutely gorgeous! With displays of flowers like these in your garden, you would never need to buy any from the store. 🙂
Thank you, Joanne. Only when the frost kills every last plant do I buy flowers. But, in winter, I consider them as important as buying vegetables when I’m at the grocer. 😉
You make me want to go out to a meadow and pick flowers for my place ~ but a trip down to Pike Place Market will have to do. When I am out walking the streets of my home town, the gardens and flowers I see always brings a great inner calm and happiness because it is a treat for those of us to pass by the house but I also know from experience (my mother) that the real happiness is when the owners go out and experience and put together such art within their homes. Great post.
Thank you so much for that – you understand completely! I bet Pike Place Mkt. has some super bouquets from surrounding farms. A summer garden bouquet is a wonderful ephemeral delight!
Stunning flowers! I love the vibrant colors! They look so lovely all together like that! That’s the perfect combination, great choice! That is an amazing idea to gather beautiful flowers for inside and then showcase them here! I hope to have a garden one day. And it would be amazing to have a house full of flowers! 😀
Thank you, Kim. I hope you do have a garden one day… mine give me lots of satisfaction as well as healthy exercise in the fresh air. 🙂
Vibrant life!
Thanks! 🙂