IAVOM ~ The Calm Before The Storm

It has been a beautiful late summer's day here with blue skies, sunshine and the most perfect temperature. The green bin has been filled almost to the brim ready for collection in the morning and this afternoon's trip to the allotment resulted in patty pan squashes, French beans, beetroot and a ruck of apples coming back home with us. The apple picking session was deemed an urgent task in view of the named storm that is heading our way tomorrow bringing heavy rain, thunder and gale force winds in its wake. Still it was lovely to breath in summer today. 

In my 'In A Vase On Monday' this week are :

• A couple of roses. The larger flower of the two is the rose my sister had named after my mother namely 'Luisa's Daughter"and then sent to me as a birthday present. I've picked her flowers for vases before and they have always been a creamy deepening into a pale soft yellow colour. This year though odd things have happened and she is sending out some very pink buds which are opening to a pale pink flower. Most peculiar. The other deeper pink rose is an emerging bud from 'Evelyn', a new rose purchase this year from Davis Austin. 'Evelyn' has a most intense perfume and reminds me of the roses we picked as children to make rose perfume with. Somehow the promise of rose perfume never lived up to the expectation and the liquid from many a jar laced with decayed petals was tossed aside before winter. 

Update - since posting I've realised that the second rose is 'Gertrude Jekyll' and not 'Evelyn'.

• Orlaya grandilora - the flowers of this annual come from the batch I sowed in May. This is the first year that I have grown these and I will be sowing another batch in the next week or so for an earlier flowering next year.
• Some sweet peas which are still producing after their late off the starting block days. I hope that their respective wigwams are up to a bit of buffeting from the wind tomorrow.
• A couple of flowers from cosmos 'Pink Lemonade' which I don't think that I will grow again. I only planted five of the plants and all have produced different sizes and colours of flower with only one looking anything like the flower pictured in the seed catalogue! An annual with a lot of hype to it's name or am I being harsh?
• A sprig of the perennial thalictrum delavayi var. decorum. I love it's soft colour and airy ways.
• Finally a few bits of the perennial eurybia divaricata also known as the white wood aster. It flowers in late summer and is a shade lover. 

My vase this week is a little milk jug, origin lost in time but probably bought from a local charity shop.

With many thanks as always to Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for the inspiration for sharing our vases on Mondays. Do have a peek there if you haven't already and be prepared to be dazzled and delighted by a wealth of flowers laced with generously shared knowledge and tips.