In A Vase On Monday ~ Anniversary Celebrations

It's certainly a red letter day today celebrating eleven years of 'In A Vase On Monday' a brilliant meme started by Cathy. I was slow to participate so my first vase which you can see below wasn't until April 2024. Unfortunately my imagination has been thwarted by domestic concerns over the last couple of days so my vase above doesn't reflect the eleven theme but I'm sure that Cathy will understand. The dominant colour of my vase is red and in it are ;

• Chrysanthemum 'Bigoudi Red' which is a deep red perennial hardy chrysanthemum Unfortunately I've allowed the plant to become rather leggy and must do better next year.
• A stem of one of Cathy's signature plants in the shape of persicaria 'Red Dragon' which I know she has shared with other bloggers as well as no doubt with other folk.
• A couple of berry carrying stems from the decidous shrub of symphoricapos or snowberry, a gift from my parent's garden. Unfortunately it has a thuggish suckering habit which I know Cathy has had problems with it too. Oh well the berries do look most pretty at this time of year. 
• Some stems from leucothoe also known by the intriguing name of dog hobble - a small evergreen shrub which occupies a pot near the front door kindly identified by Cathy over at 'Words and Herbs'. Now I need to try to work out which variety it is - the leading contender for that title is currently 'Scarletta'.

I have used my hearts shaped vase for such a special vase to reflect my affection for the blogging community spirit fostered by Cathy as we share our vases each week. I've also included eleven other vases posted over the years. At first I was going to include one for each year but then realised that I would only have ten so instead I've included a mix from over the years in no particular seasonal order. They include favourite flowers such as snowdrops, sweet peas, hardy geraniums and rudbeckia 'Sahara', as well as one or two photos remembering special occasions.

My Very First IAVOM 

My Cup Runneth Over

Of Course There Had To Be Some Snowdrops!

Summer Sizzle

Shimmer

Celebrating Easter

Sunshine

Sweet Peas - An Absolute Must Every Year

A Family Wedding

I Saw A Mouse

Celebrating A Graduation 

As always a ginormous thanks to the lovely Cathy over at 'Rambling In The Garden' for coming up with the inspiring thought of starting each week off with flowers to be shared with friends. My wish list has grown each year along with knowledge of plants we do not usually come across in the UK, lots of hints and tips as well as my expanding collection of vases. 

Now I'm off to cover the seedlings in the greenhouse - there's a chance that we may have snow overnight and temperatures are set to plummet as the week goes on reaching levels normally seen in January and February. I've managed to bring my potted snowdrops under cover just in the nick of time (you could say at the eleventh hour) and hopefully some of them might feature in Monday vases in the very near future.