In a Vase: Wisps and Waifs

It’s still very much summer weather here, whatever the calendar may say.

Despite which, I had intended to give an autumn flavour to today’s vase by making it mostly about the brilliant orange fruits of desert hackberry (Celtis ehrenbergiana). Then as I prepared to go out and cut some, I remembered abruptly that last time I tried that, they hadn’t survived very long in the vase. Furthermore, I found that I couldn’t reach many of them over the fence. Nor was I about to go round and climb through mounds of prickly pear to get at them from the other side!

I picked what I reasonably could, which was two stems with as many fruits.

And I began gathering this and that.

First there was Salvia farinacea, the other plant in my original plan. It supplied quite a few stems despite being a bit wilted by the heat. Its credentials for brilliant blue are impeccable. This is the variety “Victorian Blue”.

I collected some wild grass stems. These flower heads are bristly and act like Velcro on each other, which made for a curious task arranging them.

But it was always going to come down to more thimbleheads (Hymenothrix wislizeni), the brilliant yellow wildflower I used last week. It is by far the most prolific flower in bloom right now.

I gathered all these stems from a single plant by our little pond (which needs some expert care, more on that some other time). I also scattered a handful of seeds around, as I hope to encourage more of these in the garden.

So here is the completed vase, photographed on the shaded part of the back patio.

I look forward to the time when I will have plenty of flowers from the garden for In a Vase on Monday, but meantime there is plenty of pleasure in foraging for it! Joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for today’s post…

Happy new week!