In A Vase On Monday - From the Wild

Hello Everyone,

It's Monday again and I'm back with my offering for Cathy's In A Vase On Monday over on her blog, Rambling in the Garden.

This week it's another pretty bunch of wildflowers gathered on one of my tootles round the neighbourhood. There's red clover (Trifolium pratense), bigleaf periwinkle (Vinca Major), aquilegia, cow parsley (Anthricus sylvestris) and Hawthorn blossom (Crataegus mongyna). 

The little brown vase is a charity shop find. I've tried to make out the name of the pottery but so far none of my attempts to read it has helped. It's a mystery.

The froth of hawthorn blossom is a joy to see at this time of the year. Not that my mother, grannie and nana would approve of me bringing it inside the house. All three generations of women were incredibly superstitious! They considered it was certain to bring bad luck if it is brought into the house. It was believed to invite illness and death. 

Happily, I'm not a believer!

There's no association with the flowers and the wooden bobbins that I can think off. They just happened to be on the mantlepiece where I posed the vase for today's photos. They are a souvenir from a visit to New Lanark Mills - a very picturesque 18th century village popular with tourists to the area. 

As usual, I'll finish by saying that to see many more lovely arrangements, just click on the link to Cathy's blog, Rambling in the Garden.

Take care, everyone,

Elizabeth

In A Vase On Monday - Autumn Forage

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday was such a perfect autumnal day - cool but bright, sunny and dry - we took a walk along the riverside, and for once I remembered to take the scissors with me in the hope of finding material for today's vase.

There's was plenty to tempt me but, as part of the walk was through the university campus, on one bank of the river, I resisted some very tempting berries and instead cut some holly with berries, wild rose hips and ivy flowers from the bank on the other public walkway.

Once home, I popped into the garden where I found red cotoneaster,berries, silvery honesty seedheads (Lunaria annua), more red in the dogwood stem and leaves (Cornus alba 'Siberian Pearls'). A great surprise was to find a couple of flower clusters on the golden hop (Humulus lupulus 'Aureus'). This hop has been growing in a pot for something like eight years and this is the first time it has flowered.

And because the colours were perfect, I added the last bud from the rose 'Hot Chocolate' and the last three blooms from Echinacea 'Tomato Soup'.

I couldn't resist picking up these feather found on the walk to add to my very own 'nature table' (actually the top of a bookcase). Ever since my primary school days I have enjoyed having a nature table. The black and white striped one looks as though it came from a magpie and the other could be from a collared dove. Both birds are frequent visitors in our garden though they don't usually lose their feathers there..

While in the garden I picked some bright asters (the pink one is Aster novai-angliae 'Andenken an Alma Potschke' and the purple is a dwarf form, name forgotten) and clematis flowers which I popped into another vase with a sprig of Viburnum 'Eve Price'.

Clematis 'Barbara Dibley'.






Hope you enjoyed my vases today. It's surprising what can still be found when out autumn foraging, whether it is in the garden or in the wild. I forgot to mention that the rose hips were found growing on the sand dunes down on the beach - not a place I associate with roses.



I will be joining in and adding a link to this post over at Rambling in The Garden for Cathy's lovely meme, In A Vase On Monday.

Have a marvellous Monday,