the running wave

The last of the little sweeties.  There are one or two buds left, which I am hoping will make it into November, but just in case they don't, these pretty girls can outshine autumn colour this week! My IAVOM post is in two parts this week.  I hope you will visit my second post which follows close on the heels of this one!

Last Monday I went to a Flowers from the Farm workshop on funeral flowers.  Not the least bit morbid.  No MUM or BRO spelt out in white chrysanthemums but joyful buckets of fabulous blooms brought to the event by flower farmers in Scotland.  I thought IAVOM readers might enjoy seeing this array too. Hooray for the flower farmers of Scotland1

In December 2013, my daughter and I went to Marrakech for a long weekend.  The idea was to do some Christmas shopping - with a difference.  We had a happy and hilarious time, with a few uncertain moments which were no great surprise.  Marrakech is such an assault on the senses, compared to the sedate and familiar atmosphere of Edinburgh. I bought a tiny little green teapot, decorated with Berber silverwork.  I have never used it as a vase until today.  It sits on my kitchen worktop, reminding me of that exotic weekend, but it occurred to me this morning that it would make a great vase for a few daisies.  A Michaelmas daisy, chamomile, Mexican daisy and our beloved lawn daisy, with which I have made many daisy chains, for myself as a child, my daughter and my granddaughters. Here is the shop in the souk, just off Marrakech's Central Square, where I bought my little teapot.

This is a good time of year for walking in the countryside.  Before the harvested fields are ploughed, I enjoy walking along the hedgerows and field margins, safe in the knowledge we are not doing any damage to anything.  My vase this week has flowers from the field edges.  Chamomile, hogweed, dead nettle and yarrow.  They are fresh and pure white, a complete change from anything I have to offer from the garden, and without a vestige of autumn colour.  I particularly love the long slender seed pods on stems of a stray oilseed rape plant, self-seeded in a vast field of Brussel sprouts.

The garden still has lots of colour with a few roses, giving echoes of a lovely summer now sadly past. I have replanted most of my pots now, with some more autumnal colours.  I would love to plant some up with violas but I understand from Ted's breeder that these are poisonous to dogs, so none of those in our garden unfortunately.   Ted does love to snack on leaves of all types, and is then promptly sick!   Violas would be far too much of a temptation for him.  He is very fond of echinacea and runner bean leaves, cow parsley, wood sage.  The list is endless. I always surprise myself slightly with choosing skimmia, because they are not really my thing, but I have grown them before and I have just bought some more.  There is no denying they are a very handsome plant and will hopefully give some intense colour into winter time, looking especially good with frost of them.