10th January, 2022

 

Colours in a similar tonal range

Hello all,

The arrangement, above, is very much a summer one. The crocosmia, which are in full bloom at the moment, were very late in flowering compared to others I've seen in gardens quite close to ours. I haven't been able to work out why my plants are always late to flower but it can be quite frustrating. There are also clivias and a fatsia leaf that changed colour out of season. The berries are from  herbaceous plant called Arum Italium - pictum. Below is a photo of an arrangement I made over a year ago using the flowers of this plant.

Someone, who shall remain nameless, broke a very large piece of my aeonium and handed it to me. It's an awkward piece because it is quite heavy and long ( just under a metre) and was growing downwards with the flowers looking up. Placing its stem in water was going to be a challenge.

 I needed a tall and heavy container, so I settled on this stove pipe, ceramic vase with an unusual opening. It had, actually broken and I sanded down the rough edged and painted them the same colour as the vase. It did the trick. It's a big and sturdy vase, so I was able to wedge a horizontal fixture to hold up the curved stem of the aeonium.

Having secured it into the vase with the flowers looking up, as they should, I had to decide what else I could use to finish the piece,

I trimmed some of the more errant flowers, then I tried a number of different materials and found them wanting. In the end I went with canna lily leaves, which have a rich, reddish brown colour to complement the aeonium. But they were not enough. I added some large hydrangeas with a tinge of pink in them but I did not want them to dominate, so I partially concealed them with the leaves. Below is the completed piece, in situ under the stairs.

By anyone's standards, I have an overabundance of the regular, garden variety agapanthus but only two plants of the dark purple ones, that Vicky gave me a couple of years ago. I looked them up and I believe this variety is called Purple Cloud. They are quite lovely and  I wanted to feature them, hence the arrangement, below. I thought that the white would be a great foil for the dark purple and it was but, I felt, it needed a bit more, so a couple clivia flowers peeking from underneath, was just enough.

I've used osage oranges, Maclura pomifera, many times before but this time I wanted to try something different. This is what the fruit looks like in its natural state. 

And this is what they look like after I sprayed them gold.

And here they are in an arrangement with smoke bush and hydrangeas in a metal vase.

Bye for now,

Emily