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A walk on the wild side in a vase on Monday

A lull in the garden has afforded me the opportunity to look to my true passion in flowers for my vase this week.  Much as I love everything in the garden (with a few exotic exceptions which thankfully we can't grow outside in the UK, e.g. protea) my heart really lies with wild flowers.  I was happy to see, in Friday night's Gardener's World programme, that areas in Monty Don's garden are full of cow parsley and red campion.  These are two flowers which I already planned to use in my vase today.  They may be weeds to some, but for real lovers of flowers, they are equals to plants growing in our herbaceous borders.  Importantly they are invariably single blooms, and therefore beloved of bees and other pollinators.  I've racked my brains to think of wild flowers that have double blooms and although I am sure there will be some, they do not spring to my mind.
The simple beauty of wild flowers will always come first for me, and I think a traditional jam jar is the perfect vase for them! 

Comments

  1. Chris18 May 2020 at 11:43

    Just beautiful!

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    1. the running wave18 May 2020 at 13:41

      Thank you Chris! Wild flowers rule .... in my book anyway!! A

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  2. Susie18 May 2020 at 13:18

    Having a difficult time recently posting on blogspot sites. Trying again. Would love to tune in to Gardener's World but haven't figured out how to do that in US. Your wildflowers are lovely.

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    1. the running wave18 May 2020 at 13:40

      Hi Susie. I had a look to see if you can watch BBC programmes on iPlayer if you are outside the UK, and you can't! The BBC is funded by licence payers but you can watch Gardener's World on YouTube! Currently the last programme to be shown is 2 May, so they obviously come up a week or so after each broadcast. LOTS there to be watching then! Hope you have success with that! A

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    2. Kris Peterson18 May 2020 at 20:43

      Susie, I sent you a message on how you can obtain access to Gardeners' World episodes via YouTube. I watched episode 9 of the 2020 season last light. So sorry to hear about Nigel!

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  3. karen gimson18 May 2020 at 13:46

    Very beautiful. Calming. Lovely

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    1. the running wave18 May 2020 at 16:49

      Thank you Karen. Wild flowers always seem especially beautiful to me. Probably because they are so simple! A

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  4. Cathy18 May 2020 at 18:57

    A simple beauty indeed, Amanda. I love both campion and cow parsley (although buttercups not so much - it's the yellow!)

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    1. the running wave18 May 2020 at 20:01

      I do love buttercups! I suppose it's one of the first wild flowers one learns about as a very young child. The classic wild flower meadows of the 1950s, strewn with buttercups and daisies. My cousin and I always knew that when we saw the first buttercups in May, the fair would be coming to our village. And it always did! A

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  5. Kris Peterson18 May 2020 at 20:46

    Your wildflower arrangement is lovely, Amanda. I adore cow parsley and tried (twice!) to grow it here. It's unfortunately a no-go in my climate but Orlaya grandiflora provides a similar look, and self-seeds relatively reliably.

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    1. the running wave19 May 2020 at 08:50

      Have you tried the garden version of cow parsley, Ravenswing? It has a beautiful dark wine coloured leaf and stem and the contrast with the white flower is delectable! I had a nice plant coming along, it's third year in my tiny garden, and some blasted bird - probably a pigeon - has broken off all the flower stems. I am furious and mortified! Otherwise I try and grow Ammi, which is really beautiful and not far off cow parsley! A

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  6. Cathy Thompson19 May 2020 at 07:30

    Lovely to see you showcasing the wildlings! I particularly love red campion, but have reservations about buttercups - they are pretty elsewhere, but they run all over places that they shouldn't in my garden (R. repens). Getting more philosophical, but I know I have to remove them, otherwise nothing else would remain!

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    1. the running wave19 May 2020 at 08:48

      I do agree with you about buttercups! I don't want them in my garden either, and always pull them out! But along the hedgerows, roadside, field margins, anywhere else - love their shining yellow, and of course they are vital as a child to find out whether you like butter! Do you remember holding a buttercup under your chin to see if the yellow reflected off your skin. If it did, you liked butter!! A

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