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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Monday, November 9, 2015

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.

17 comments:

  1. Once you put that vase on dark furniture against the stairway, I think the contrast works well. I will wait till spring to see a white and green arrangement in it! I used fall branches and grasses as well and had the same problems with things falling apart before the arrangement was finished.

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  2. That white vase is a reminder of the future snow...

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  3. Fabulous, makes me smile. ;-) Thank you

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  4. You are quite a tease, and I was concerned with the arrangement you'll come up with, but it turned out to be wonderful and wild. I love it. The color of beauty berry always knocks my socks off.
    Funny how it doesn't always work out the way we planned but often it's better!

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  5. Well I think it's just smashing, especially against the dark wood. You're lucky to have a space to display such a big creation, that's one thing this meme has taught me - my house is even smaller than I thought it was.

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  6. Ah, but what a magnificent jumble...and you gave us many chuckles on the way. I'm crazy about that goofy vase.

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  7. Absolutely gorgeous! I love it. The callicarpa berries are fabuous, I wish mine was big enough to pick. I know what you mean about leaves. I tried to pick some wonderful autumn leaves the other day and ended up with bare twigs.

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  8. I'm glad you kept at it, Peter. It looks gorgeous and the arrangement holds its own against that vase, which is hard to do with something that eye-catching. For the record, I have serious issues with lesson #2 as well - that's the reason I often have 2 or even 3 vases.

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  9. That vase is so cool! Your final arrangement looks fantastic Peter, it's beautifully balanced and you clearly have an eye for this sort of thing.

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  10. OK, I think it's fabulous. Seriously. I LOVE it framed by the dark wood. It looks like one of those gorgeous, huge floral arrangements that you see in hotels. Well done! And your smaller arrangement looks great, too. Thanks for the chuckles, as well.

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  11. I hope you had as much fun creating this as I did reading about it. I can just picture the creative ins and outs of the door, and the jumbling around to finally get this very gratifying fall scenario! It tells us there is really bounty in the fall.

    SilverLake Sue

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  12. I love the arrangement, but I have to agree, "that vase"? I sure want to see this on an old crock.

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  13. I think the arrangement looks great! I never take the time to do this but I do love looking at everyone's Monday vases.

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  14. I love the contents of your vase and I think they look really good! At least the vase should make you smile every time you look at it! ;-)

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  15. Oh I had such a giggle as I read your post Peter - thank you for entertaining us in your endeavours! There were a lot of lessons for us all in there :) Your multi faced vase is such a weirdly wonderful thing and seeing the final creation was a revelation when we could see the scale of it - it looks so good, and who needs oasis?! Thank you so much for sharing, Peter

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  16. You always know how to entertain, Peter. I had a momentary worry as to the rating of this post when you said the vase was "inappropriate," knowing you even as little as I do. Then again, maybe it's more a reflection of my own dirty mind. That's an interesting cotoneaster. I like the orange fruit. I have some bird-sown cotoneaster, too, but the one that I rescued from the deer turned out to be red. I just tore it out recently, since it was too big for its spot and was producing copious babies, too.

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  17. Those purple Beautyberry fruits are so great.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I love to hear your thoughts.