IAVOM ~ 13 Years On !

Today is the thirteenth anniversary of 'In A Vase On Monday' and Cathy has suggested that we think outside the box this week and use something other than a vase to display our floral offerings. Inspiration was in short supply here but himself came up with the idea of using one of the two candlesticks (a charity shop find) that usually sit on the top of the fireplace.

In my 'vase' are :

• The faded flowers of chrysanthemum 'Agnes Ann, which were in my Monday vase a couple of weeks ago. The red flowers have morphed into a deep pink and although slightly on the shabby side now still look attractive.
• A solitary pink helichrysum also known as strawflower. These were not gown from seed but bought as plug plants. They were supposed to be orange but obviously didn't know it. Still they didn't clash with their dahlia and cosmos neighbours and are are still in flower although probably not for much longer.
• Some sprigs of the dreaded symphoricarpus - this is the white berried version variety. We're on a mission to eradicate if from the garden. Himself is doing all the really hard work and unfortunately progress has stalled for now as he appears to have damaged a ligament. 

A HUGE thanks to the lovely Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' who initiated 'In A Vase On Monday' all those years ago. She has sustained a weekly get together since through whatever has been happening in her life and though the different seasons and their challenges. Mondays simply wouldn't be the same without it and my plant wish list would be so much shorter. Neither would I have encountered all the kindred souls who make it such a pleasure to join in!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Mushroom Magic

 

IAVOM ~ 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head'

Here it's sycamore keys that keep falling on my head and not raindrops although there are a lot of raindrops predicted in the forecast for the coming week. Outside the front of the house and on the table which we regularly use for outdoor morning coffee these wonderful pieces of natural engineering have been helicoptering down in abundance. They are quite hard so it's rather disconcerting when they hit you. Unfortunately the tree was already established in the garden when we moved here. I've spent a good amount of time cursing it especially when seedlings germinate in profusion every year in all sorts of weird and wonderful nooks and crannies. In my vase this week are :

• The bright red flowers of chrysanthemum 'Agnes Ann' - a new introduction to the garden having been bought on holiday in September along with a couple of other chrysanthemums.
• A spray of panicum 'Sparkling Fountain' grown from March sown seed started in the greenhouse.
• Flowers from the beautiful late flowering aster 'Little Carlow'.

A big thanks to Cathy who blogs at 'Rambling In The Garden' who invites us to share our flowers and foliage every Monday whatever the season.

The overnight temperatures took an alarming dip this weekend and there was a rush beforehand to get some plants in pots undercover. Autumn seed sowing has been completed I think. For the first time in years I've sown sweet peas this month - only just over a week ago and I was delighted to see signs of germination this morning. I sowed them in dry compost in root trainers and have sprayed water sparingly on them.  I've sown my sweet peas in March for some considerable time but the hot summers of the last two years have not been kind to them so maybe time for a change. Bulb planting continues and will do for some time to come. I wonder what has everyone else been up to in their gardens 🤔

IAVOM ~ Autumn Stars

 

It seems a while since I've contributed to 'In A Vase On Monday' but I'm back this week with a pick and plonk. My vase contains :

• Dahlia 'Night Silence' which has become a favourite and has been out in flower for a while now. Cathy, you asked how big the heads were last time I included this dahlia in a vase. The answer is about 4 inches across although I've read that they can reach 8 inches across,
• Dahlia, probably 'Purple Flash', which I grew for the first time last year. I must investigate and see what else it could possibly be. Both tubers spent the winter in the greenhouse before being replanted in the spring and eventually being planted out in the outer world in late spring. I had a minor panic the night before last, when we had a predicted minimum night time temperature of 5 degrees centigrade. I think that might have proved accurate as the following morning the greenhouse thermometer had recorded a low of 7.5 degrees centigrade. Anyway they came through unscathed and I now need to make a decision soon whether to leave them in the ground overwinter or dig them up.
• Allium tuberosomalso known as white garlic chives. They are a perennial herb coming into flower here at the same time as the ordinary chives get their second flush of flowers. This year though there was no second flush maybe as a result of the drought, so these white flowers were especially welcome. I will probably remove them from the vase quickly as I have a vague recollection of reading something to the effect that alliums in vases can be problematic. 

The vase is a preloved Emma Bridgewater one purchased a few years ago via Ebay.

With a big thank you as always to Cathy from 'Rambling in The Garden' who steers this meme with much love throughout the seasons. Do visit her and other participating blogs if you haven't already.

Not much to report on the gardening front as I've been really laid low by an infection which has severely impacted my energy levels. Whilst I was at my weakest a big box of bulbs arrived which I made himself remove to the shed pronto so I didn't have to look at them! This week a second much smaller box of the ones I forgot to order is on the way so my priority is to get planting this week.  A case of little and often methinks. On Saturday I made the most of a beautiful afternoon and stripped off the last of the bush tomatoes which were grown outside in big pots. There were very few red ones. One major task which has been accomplished thanks to himself is the removal of the pears and most of the crop from our two apple trees. A good crop on both apples and pear trees but not as good as the vintage year that was 2025. There is now relish to be concocted and apples to be stewed for freezing. Are you preserving or pickling this autumn?

IAVOM ~ Revived

 

We have returned home after a week's break in Shropshire feeling revived. My vase reflects this being a bit of a revival special containing :

• Rudbeckia fulgida var. dreamii - I was most surprised to find when we got home that two of the three rudbeckias in my last Monday vase a fortnight ago were still going strong. The vase was placed on a north facing window sill and whilst the other contents of the vase were jettisoned before we left I didn't have the hearr to dispose of the rudbeckia flowers. They just had to be included in today's vase. 
• A sprinkling of aster 'Little Carlow' - I know that this plant has been subjected to a name change but I'm sticking with the old name which I can remember and don't have to check on the spelling. This is a favourite with me. It doesn't do much for most of the year but it can be counted on to produce clouds of exquisite little daisies at this time of the years.
• A stem of of the shimmering panicum 'Sparkling Fountain' which were sown in the greenhouse early in March. I've grown this from seed for several years saving some seed in the autumn. I plant it in pots with companions and although it self- seeds I usually find that the seedlings appear in spots where it's difficult to remove them from without damage.

Thanks as always to lovely Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for getting us together every Monday to share our vases.

I've obviously not been able to do much in the garden as I've not been about. I did take some salvia cuttings before we left and also sowed some hardy annuals with more being sown yesterday. The green bin is full once more ready for collection tomorrow and I've acquired a few packets of bulbs which I must plant before my online order arrives. Finally a nursery and garden recommendation if you should find yourself in north Shropshire. Do visit 'Wildgoose Nursery', near Craven Arms where there is an excellent selection of unusual plants for sale as well as a delightful walled garden. If you can't visit it may be worth subscribing to their newsletter. The latest edition describes the plants which flourished in this hot and dry summer and was most interesting reading.

IAVOM ~ Sunshine & Showers

It's certainly been a case of more showers than sunshine of late but the garden is lapping it up after this hot dry summer. In my vase this Monday are a trio of :

• Rudbeckia fulgidia var. dreamii - a reliable late summer flowering perennial which simply just glows summer sunshine even on dull wet days, of which there have been a few just recently. My plant came from the fabulous nursery which is close to our caravan in the Lake District. The nursery Abi and Tom's Garden Plants is going from strength to strength featuring in both last week's episode of 'Gardeners' World' as well as in this September's edition of the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine 'The Garden'. Definitely a must to visit if you ever find yourself in the south of Cumbria. Below is a photo one of the garden spaces in the nursery when we visited in the middle of May this year: 

• A couple of strands of the golden hop - humulus lupus 'Aureus' - it's having a good year but it's not been as rampart as last year probably in response to the drier summer. It's has just come into full hopiness over the last week. 
• A sprig of an old stalwart clematis jouiniana x Praecox' which is an excellent scrambler and a pollinator magnet. 

My vase was a memento from a holiday last year when we stayed just over the English border and visited a small ceramics studio in Coldstream, Scotland. I felt that it would be churlish to leave empty-handed - well that's my excuse 😉

Thanks must go to Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for her excellent hosting throughout the year. Do visit if you haven't already and see what she and other bloggers are filling their vases with this week.

Here another week without much in the way of any gardening tasks being accomplished. As already mentioned there's been a lot of the wet stuff over the last week and the cramping middle finger hasn't gone away. The rain has precipitated a rash of briza maxima seedlings to appear overnight. They will have to wait until they are bigger to get hold of to extract from where they are surplus to requirements. I have however sent my spring bulb order off which is early for me. I still have tulips to order but don't really want to store these for any longer than I have too so will wait a while longer, maybe another couple of weeks or so. I've taken one or two cuttings and hope to do some more as the week goes on as well as sow some hardy annuals with the imminent arrival of September tomorrow. What have you all be in up to in your gardens? I'd love to know.

Almost Wordless Wednesday ~ Still Some Green

 

Lovely to see that there was still some green grass after such a hot summer on yesterday's visit to Abbeywood Gardens in Cheshire 😀

IAVOM ~ "Pardon Me"

"Pardon Me" or words of a similar nature was what I said when I knocked the head of the last remaining flower bud on my newly acquired day lily - hemerocalis "Pardon Me" to give it it's proper name. I had been garden visiting with a friend and also wondering round the nursery at Bluebell Cottage Gardens when my eyes were drawn to this plant. I have bought very few plants this summer mainly because conditions haven't been ideal for planting but couldn't resist this one. Not only is it a beautiful colour it also has an Award Of Garden Merit and it's also supposed to be long-flowering. I had been moving my new plant to give it a good soak in an old washing up bowl when this accident happened and left the bud floating in the water. I got a nice surprise the next morning to see that the bud was still floating and had opened fully so of course I had to find it a more attractive vessel to display it and for it to shine albeit for an extremely short time.

Thanks as always to Cathy over at 'Rambling In the Garden' for inviting us to share our floral pickings each Monday. It's a great way to start the week. 

The good news here is that it has finally cooled down and it's so much more pleasant to be outdoors. We have had some rain. In fact one day last week it even rained for most of the day and having just watched the weather forecast for the week ahead there's more rain in the pipeline. The not so good news is that out of the blue I have been experiencing cramp in my right hand middle finger (I'm right handed) which as well as being painful is most disconcerting as I don't know when it will strike. As a result of this I've been gentle on the aforesaid digit so have done little in the way of gardening as well as trying to limit my keyboard use. The incidences of cramp seem to be gradually lessening so I'm very much hoping that it will soon completely disappear so that I can proceed with various tasks🤞

IAVOM ~ 'In The Pink'

 

In my vase this Monday are :

• Some shy cosmos. These were grown from seed back at the start of April and have made for small bushy plants which don't require any support. There seem to be a good number of flowers to come so I must keep up with deadheading. I can't remember their name and am unable to find the seed packet so I'm hoping to find a label as I would like to grow them again.
• A couple of stems of helichrysum bracteatum 'Silvery Rose' which certainly seem to be appreciating this hot summer. I bought these as small seedlings rather than sow them myself.
• A flower of dahlia 'Night Silence' which was overwintered in a pot in the greenhouse before planting out in late April. I must admit that I have carried on watering it regularly during the summer along with other plants that I've planted this year.

The vase is one of a trio purchased on a garden visit with a friend back in 2023.

Thanks as always to Cathy over at 'Rambling In the Garden' who gives us the opportunity to share our vases at the start of every week. Do visit her and join in if you haven't already. 

After a relatively cool and fresh weekend when it was a joy to be outside the weather has reverted back to very warm and humid so there has been virtually no gardening activity today. I did nip out before breakfast to pot up a couple of lychnis coronaria plants which I've grown from seed and will nip out early this evening to water the tomatoes. The garden is looking very weary but there are signs of some rain in the forecast from tomorrow onwards which is promising 🤞 I've just been reading some most sobering statistics on the Met Office website about July 2026, when parts of the country have had their driest July on record since 1836! 

This has been an absolutely dreadful year for farmers especially in the south and east of the country and my struggles pale in comparison. My thoughts are now turning to ordering spring bulbs and to checking my seed box. I'm determined to sow more hardy annuals later this month and into September to ease the spring workload as well as produce more sturdy plants. There's always next year 😀

Five Favourites, July 2026.

I'm joining in with Cathy's 'Five Favourites' meme just in the nick of time before we enter a new month so  here are five of my favourite July flowers. My first two are this combination rosa 'The Fairy' with what I think is clematis viticella 'Madame Julia Correvon'.

Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer' which as you can see from some of the crisped flowers I've been struggling to keep up with deadheading in this oh way too hot, cruel and dry July.

Some blue in the shape of the hardy geranium 'Rozanne who hopefully will continue to flower until early autumn. I love the colour but she is floppy and takes up a lot of room. The plan was to replace her with greanium 'Azure Rush' but I didn't do this in the spring. Maybe just as well as in view of the dry spring and summer. I'm reviewing my plan.

Finally and I hope Cathy will allow it a combination of flowers which we came across last week in the gardens at  Levens Hall in Cumbria, where they plant 15,000 plus annuals each spring! Here was a bright combination of the perennial verbena bonariensis the company of cleomes and cosmos. It made for a glorious patch of colour, which although you can't appreciate in this photo, was attracting a multitude of pollinators on one of the very few partly dull and grey July days we've experienced this month. I loved it ❤️ 

A BIG thanks to Cathy over at 'Words And Herbs' or inviting us to share our monthly favourites throughout the year. Do pay her a visit to see what beauties she was sharing earlier this month.