In A Vase On Monday – Warm Colors

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Eliza Waters

IMG_5902For this week’s vase, I’ve used warm-colored flowers from the garden that you can see off the deck in the background. The calendula and fleabane have been allowed to self sow into exhilarating abundance! Since we eat all meals outside this time of year, we really are enjoying it.IMG_5746

IMG_5903Other than orange and yellow calendula (C. officinalis), I’ve added sundrops (Oenothera tetragona), IMG_5907salvia (S. x sylvestris) and common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva).

Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) again features as filler and the accent grass is yellow foxtail (Setaria lutescens). The vase is a vintage ironstone pitcher from England that once belonged to my mother-in-law.

IMG_5904Thanks 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.IMG_5755

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Silent Sunday

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Eliza Waters
Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) & Poppy (Papaver somniferum) leaf

Butterfly weed flower bud (Asclepias tuberosa) & Poppy (Papaver somniferum) leaf

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Eliza Waters

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In A Vase On Monday – Foxglove & Iris

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Eliza Waters

IMG_5688For this week’s vase, I used white and purple foxgloves (Digitalis) and a purple/white Japanese/Siberian/Louisiana? iris that I picked up at a yard sale, so I am uncertain as to its name. A search online has yielded no close identification. IMG_5695If anyone can enlighten me, please do. Regardless, it is still a lovely and prolific addition to my iris collection.

IMG_5692You might note I tucked in one of the very last white peony (Paeonia) blossoms. The cool and cloudy weather this week allowed them to linger a bit longer. A full month of voluptuous and scented blooms, who could ask for anything more?

IMG_5687Chartreuse blossoms of lady’s mantle (Alchemilla) are a favorite filler flower of mine and tight buds of golden valerian (Patrinia) are used as a green. For added interest, I put in a few tendrils of grape vine (Vitis).

IMG_5686I’ve used my favorite vase, a hand thrown pottery gem that I bought in my twenties from a potter in New Hampshire. One of a kind, the artist had moved on to a different technique and she had few of this style left.

IMG_5693Thanks 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.

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Silent Sunday

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Eliza Waters

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Eliza Waters

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In A Vase On Monday – Last of the Peonies

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Eliza Waters

IMG_5661For this week’s vase, I feature the last of my peonies. This week’s warm temperatures will finish them for the year. They were spectacular and I am happy I got to enjoy them for three weeks.

Yellow thermopsis (Thermopsis villosa), an American native that I rarely see in gardens (though who knows why, as it is a wonderful perennial that I look forward to every year), and catmint (Nepeta racemosa) provide vertical accents.

IMG_5662I’ve tucked in a few small blossoms of white sweet William (Dianthus barbatus), a plant  that I discovered growing in the lawn when I moved here 25 years ago and still comes up every year. It is likely a heirloom variety.

Another favorite native, daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) and lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) are used as filler.

A few leaves of a blue hosta are tucked in to compliment the blue tones of the catmint.

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I’ve used an antique green hyacinth glass as my vase, one I’ve had for 40 years (oh, my! and it was old when I got it!). It rests on a hand-crocheted doily from my collection – a pineapple pattern that I think is so pretty. The little jade elephant is an old carving that belonged to my late mother-in-law.IMG_5663

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Cathy at Rambling In the Garden,  who hosts a weekly meme to showcase what is blooming in our gardens, 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.

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In A Vase On Monday – Foxglove & Peonies

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Eliza Waters

IMG_5553For this week’s vase, I again chose peonies, which are at their height of bloom, perfuming the air around them like a little slice of heaven. Foxgloves have come in this week, standing sentinel in the spring bed, taking over from the bleeding hearts that have nearly finished. Soft gray buds of lamb’s ears complete the arrangement.

IMG_5552I’ve used a pink frosted glass vase to compliment the colors in the arrangement and set it on a vintage crocheted doily, edged with pansy trim. A real treasure bought at a yard sale – a lucky find that day as I’d never seen anything like it before or since.

IMG_5556I love peering inside the soft, ruffled petals of peonies and inhaling their sweet scent. Such loveliness is meant to be savored and appreciated – their time seems so short. So while they are here I will indulge my senses with their voluptuous beauty.

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.

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In A Vase on Monday – Peonies

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Eliza Waters

IMG_5497Cathy at Rambling In the Garden, 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.

IMG_5495I used a favorite cobalt blue vase to arrange white and pink peonies (which started opening only yesterday), tall stems of baptisia, oxeye daisies, tightly budded chartreuse lady’s mantle, purple Siberian iris and reddish-pink weigela, which picked up the brush of the same hue on the inner petals of the white peony.

IMG_5496It always cheers me up to create a arrangement and I thank Cathy at Words and Herbs and WG at Forest Garden, who have inspired me from past posts to join in the fun. If you feel inspired, join in too!

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Soul Sister

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Eliza Waters
Eastern Comma Polygonia comma

Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma)

Recently, I received the call that I knew would come sooner or later from one of my ‘soul’ sisters. The medical team are stopping her chemo, her tumors aren’t responding and hospice has been called. Only a little over a month ago she celebrated her 57th birthday.

Through tears, we spoke of her sadness at leaving her children behind, not being able to see them grow up, graduate and build lives of their own. She is not afraid of death, her greatest pain is the dreams left unfulfilled in a life that cruelly seems too short.

Our conversation was brief as she had to answer another phone call. Standing in the kitchen looking outside at the beautiful spring morning, I wept. Life is like this, I told myself. Time to put on my big girl pants. She will be my first close peer to die and like anything new, the territory takes getting used to.

I stepped onto the deck, took a deep breath and looked at the trees waving in the breeze, listened to birds singing their spring songs; the world all around me in a state of renewal and regeneration, seemingly at odds with what I am facing.

A movement caught my eye and I saw an orange butterfly alight on a quartz stone placed at the edge of the garden bed below me. “Of course,” I thought with a brief smile, “I can count on Spirit to always send me a sign and here it is, a butterfly, the symbol of soul transformation.” Its message was one of comfort, “Things are as they should be, be at peace.”

 

 

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