In A Vase On Monday

The grasses are doing their bloom thing right now so I thought it might be fun to cut some for today's vase.  Then I walked around outside to see what else might work with them.  Then I saw this:

The Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' looks so good right now, it's burgundy leaves turning bright red. The rain stopped for a moment and the sun backlit the tree.  Purty.

Then there was a "Fragrant Cloud" rose that looked really nice with the blue evergreen near it and the two would have made a nice simple arrangement.

It would be a good idea to bring it in before this happens to it.  Heavy rain isn't kind to roses.

Here's what I ended up with.  Some of the grasses, a few maple leaves, beautyberries, seed capsules from the thimble tree, some foliage from Berberis 'Orange Rocket'  and a couple of branches from a bird-planted cotoneaster.

This mess might look good in a stoneware vase or wicker basket but NO, someone had to have already decided on an inappropriate, albeit interesting,container. It's already a recipe for disaster. Perhaps this should be titled "In a Face on Monday."

There was a battle and I didn't win.  The aftermath.  There was obviously some sort of struggle.

What I learned too late: 1) When working with autumn leaves, most of them may fall off of the branches during the process, 2) Just because you cut it doesn't mean that you have to use it, 3) Flowers and foliage look quite different outside against the green background of the house than they do inside, 4) Sometimes it's best to start again rather than just cramming more into the container thinking that somehow you'll make it work.

As things continued to fall wherever they felt like being, I found myself thinking that a nice piece of oasis would be a good idea.  It's one of the few things that I don't have kicking around the house (there's some in my classroom though.)

Things just didn't want to stay put.  I considered cutting some chicken wire to make a support but luckily remembered an antique glass flower frog that came with some vase or other.

The leaves were much redder outside!  The flower frog worked fairly well but that oasis will be coming home before next weekend!

I decided that the arrangement really needed some yellow foliage so went foraging again but came back with smoke from the smoke bush instead.

And these few yellow leaves from the cherry tree.  There were some really nice tiny ginkgo leaves but the miniature tree didn't want to be cut in half to be used.

So, it's a bit of a jumble.

 Oh well, live and learn.  It does look autumnal but that vase...

To make up for that, I refreshed last week's arrangement with some of the leftovers from the face vase fiasco.

In A Vase on Monday is the inspired idea of our host, Cathy from Rambling in the Garden.  Click on over there to see what others, much better than this than I are arranging in vases today.