In a Vase on Monday: More Hellebores

April 6, 2026 by Cathy

Hellebores are such pretty flowers, but many of them are difficult to see properly in all their beauty while in the garden. I decided to risk picking a whole bunch again… they don’t always last well in a vase so it IS a risk. I also used my very delicate daffodil vase which my Mum sent me by post a couple of years ago – miraculously it survived the journey so it gets handled with great care.

I added some delicate spiraea foliage just emerging from my ‘Magic Carpet’ spiraeas. The leaves are this gorgeous shade of red, or are they perhaps orange? With hints of pink?

It feels like a luxury to have so many flowers to pick from the garden at last!

And how did the hellebores last this time? Well, after 24 hours I have only had one casualty so far. It will be strung upside down in the cellar – oh no, not a punishment! But an attempt to dry it for dried flower arrangements next winter!

I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden – click on the link to see her vase today, and those linking in from around the globe.

Wishing everyone a belated Happy Easter weekend, and Happy Gardening!

In a Vase on Monday: Sticks and Stones

March 2, 2026 by Cathy

Perhaps I am impatient, I’d prefer to say optimistic, cutting these stems to (hopefully) flower indoors soon. Last week I shared some Forsythia that took just a week to open once brought inside. Today I have a mix of stems, that may look like sticks now, but in a week they should be beauties…. watch this space!

My props are two rocks picked up from river beds in Germany; the larger is from the River Isar, and the small flat pebble from the Danube.

The large pink buds are Viburnum ‘Dawn’. These buds are looking a little worse for wear after being stuck at this stage for weeks. After being indoors a couple of days they are finally showing signs of opening!

The red stems are Cornus sanguinea. I used a few in a vase earlier this year and they have sprouted fresh green leaves.

A previous arrangement, revamped with some Forsythia. The Cornus stems have produced lovely fresh green leaves.

The darker stems are the ornamental apricot Prunus mume Beni Chidori, which may take a while to blossom, and on the left is a stem of my sweet-smelling Chimomanthus praecox, appropriately known as Wintersweet. I caught a whiff of this wonderful fragrance while cutting back my grasses last week; just a few flowers are open, with hundreds more to follow. I am looking forward to seeing the first bees visit it.

This mild sunny spell should help them all along. In the meantime I can watch these unfurl indoors close up. 😃

Many thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden – for more vases follow the link. Wishing you all late Winter/Spring sunshine and maybe some gardening time, and have a great week!

🌷🌷🌷

In a Vase on Monday: Forced Spring

February 23, 2026 by Cathy

I may not have to wait long now before the first signs of Spring… or at least the first signs that winter is coming to an end. But until then I have some forced Forsythia that I cut only a week ago to bring indoors. And it opened just in time for my Monday vase today!

I do love seeing the forsythia come into flower outside, but like many shrubs it can be forced to flower early indoors and I have used my Forsythia vase with yellow flowers printed on the glass.

Our snow has (almost) all melted away and it is very soggy and muddy everywhere, but it looks like we will have drier and much milder weather by the end of the week. I can’t wait! I will don my wellies and do some much needed tidying up!

The weather in recent days, along with the sound of the crows and jays in the woods, reminded me of this poem by Edward Thomas:

THAW

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed

The speculating rooks at their nests cawed

And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,

What we below could not see, Winter pass.

On that note, I hope you are seeing signs of winter coming to a close, even if it hasn’t passed completely yet!

Do go and visit Cathy, our host for this Monday meme, at Rambling in the Garden, and see what she and others have found to share from their gardens today.

And have a great week!

In a Vase on Monday: Early Autumn

September 15, 2025 by Cathy

It is much cooler this week here and the garden feels very autumnal. Quite a bit of rain has rejuvenated the thirsty plants and trees and the house martins have finally left, except for the odd straggler here and there. Although we aren’t seeing any leaf colour yet, yesterday some lovely red Geranium leaves caught my eye, and I had also noticed the hawthorn and spindle tree berries looking good… the beginnings of an idea for my Monday vase!

My large hare jug (with autumn berries) seemed an appropriate vase. I chose some red and dark purple flowers: Verbena bonariensis, Verbena hastata, Strawflowers, Persicaria Blackfield and P. Orangefield. They contrast nicely with the Crataegus (hawthorn) and Euonymus (spindle tree) berries.

Don’t the spindle tree berries look like tiny pink pumpkins!

Finally I added a few sprigs of the lovely dark pinky red Miscanthus seedheads from M. ‘Red Chief’.

Thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting this Monday meme. In a few days it will be my 14th blogging anniversary, so also many thanks to you all for visiting over the years!

Have a great week

and

Happy Gardening!

April into May, 2025

April 30, 2025 by Cathy

I suddenly realized yesterday that April is almost over and wondered briefly if I had slept through a week or so! Where did April go?!

So many shades of green!

Anyway, here are a few things that happened in my garden this month, starting with my aubergine seedlings. Well, they are still indoors here actually, but have since been put in slightly larger pots and placed in the cold frame on the south-facing and partially covered patio – wrapped in garden fleece to keep them warm at night and stop them from burning in the sun in the daytime. They haven’t grown an awful lot, but hopefully the sunshine this week will give them a boost.

We got a lot of sunshine this month, albeit frequently with very cold and often stormy winds. The housemartins still returned bang on time though on the 17th (it is always between the 12th and 24th of April). I was constantly reminded of these lines from Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time”…

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

😆

In any case, it meant a lot of blue skies, perfect for showing off blossom etc!

I am always worried The ‘Edge flower bed has been struck hard by the winter, and yet by early April it was already bulking up… the Forsythia was in flower, the orange-leafed Spiraea was unfurling, poppy foliage growing…

What a difference two weeks can make…

Two plants growing there that really make an impact both close up and from a distance are:

Euphorbia polychroma – my friend thinks it looks as if it has been sprayed with yellow paint, it stands out so much. 😉

And Spiraea japonica ‘Magic Carpet’. Some gardeners may turn up their noses at the modern and highly marketed hybrids, but this one really is something special. Its foliage starts out orange, fades to a dark brownish green in summer and then in autumn goes bright pink and orange again.

By mid April I felt we had a good enough forecast to throw caution to the (cold) wind and sow the grass under the new pergola in the Words & Herbs Bed. (It is starting to look fuzzy green now under the light mulch of hay).

Another task for April was potting up some newly purchased shrubs and plants for containers/pots in the yard. This area heats up in summer, but is extremely cold in winter, so after losing a few terracotta or glazed pots again this winter I decided to use plastic ones from recycled materials instead.

They will last much longer and will be easier to move if the weather makes it necessary. A lot of the inspiration to increase my collection of permanently planted containers came from my dear friend Annette’s newest book ‘Mein Garten wächst im Topf’ (My garden grows in pots), sadly only available in German. (Annette blogs at personaleden.com)

A couple of shrubs I can’t wait to see bulk out and flower here are a Buddleia with ‘weeping’ flowers like Wisteria, called ‘Wisteria Lane’, and a compact Viburnum called ‘Watanabe’. If they flower this year I will share some photos. It is always a gamble, seeing what will survive several weeks of freezing temperatures in winter, and the harsh midsummer sun reflected off the concrete yard. I can always move things to the shady side of the barn if it gets too hot, which is our refuge too!