In a Vase on Monday – Never Work With Animals

By Patientgardener @patientgardener

The theme for my vase this week is red.  I wanted to use some of the Euphorbia characias ‘White Swan’ as I love the flower heads.  They have red eyes on each of the flowers, you have to trust me on this one.  Anyway, I have been pondering how to use them on and off all week and decided that the red Polyanthus would pick up the color really well.

Next puzzle, and I have quickly learnt from other people’s Monday Vase posts that this is as important as the plant material, what vase/container to use.  I remembered a small glazed pot that I bought in Barcelona a few years back which was just the right shade for the polyanthus.  Relocating the vase I discovered it was full of small tissue packets of seed collected on holiday last summer in the Italian lakes.

The vase is quite wide so I added some prunings of new rose shoots as a framework and I thought the color of the new shoots worked well with the red theme.  Having photographed my vase outside last week I decided to continue this idea however my furry friend had other ideas.

As they say never work with children and animals.  How the vase didn’t get knocked over I have no idea.

So here is the finished vase and you can only just see the vase.  I must work on photographing my ‘creations’ better.  I have to admit that when I cut the Euphorbia (taking great care not to get any sap on my skin) I realised that the flowers were on the wane and you couldn’t see the red centres but never mind I think it looks quite pretty.

For more Monday vases visit Cathy over at Rambling in the Garden and check out the comments box