In A Vase On Monday - A Weekend of Garden Friends

The weekend was a whirlwind of garden activities with friends.  On Friday I took a personal day off of work, drove to Portland and visited five nurseries.  At Joy Creek, I ran into my pal Anna of Flutter and Hum   She showed me the treasures  that she was going to take home that day.  A gardener working at a nursery is a dangerous thing!

On Saturday I hit a nursery and then met up with friend Loree of Danger Garden to go to the Rare Plant Research, a wholesale grower of all plants unusual, annual day of opening to the public. While wandering through the hoop houses, we ran into blogging friend Amy of The World's Best Gardening Blog.  Afterward, we hit a couple more nurseries together.  The plantmobile was quite full on the return trip and required many trips to unload the plants and cool pots made by Burl, the owner of Rare Plant Research.

On Sunday, after work, Tom and I met Alison of Bonney Lassie to tour the garden of  friend Camille Paulsen and that of the late Lavonne Stewart-Campbell and her co-gardener and husband Mick Campbell.  Mick decided to keep the garden open in Lavonne's honor.  By the end of the day, I felt both tired and very lucky to have so many special garden friends, all of these were fruits of  blogging.
The lucky part reminded me of a lucky coin teapot that Tom brought back from a trip to China several years ago which became the vessel for today's arrangement.

Looking for something special, cutting this first blue poppy of the season was briefly considered.

It would be hard to find mates for this.  There were a few roses that might have worked, maybe rhododendrons?  Instead, I went with some simple flowers which I have in abundance, and many will be pulled up soon.

Native bleeding hearts, some winter pansies, forget me nots, bishop weed foliage and flowers

This cutie from Far Reaches Farm whose name I've forgotten.

The last of the Spanish Bluebells.

Casually thrown into the lucky coin teapot.  What?  No props?  

I'd been waiting to use this mini circle-pot gift from Loree but it seemed fitting to use it today in the celebration of garden friends arrangement.  Truth be told, the Bishop's weed is included as I remember her chiropractor visit inducing struggle to rid her garden of this.  A tillandsia and a monkey puzzle cone seemed to be enough.

On Saturday, Loree remembered that I'd posted a picture of a three-legged pot.  She'd purchased one but never did anything with it.  Her husband was not at all fond of it and so she gave it to me.  I was pretty sure I had just the thing for this one.

A semi-spherical tillandsia clump. (Okay, I tried a lot of different things but this was my favorite.)

In this space, the teapot is obscured but I know it's there, just like my virtual friends who I don't see all the time.  Thanks friends for the delightful weekend and thank you to all of my friends from the blogosphere!

In a vase on Monday is hosted by the talented and dedicated Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.  Click here to join in the fun!