the running wave

It's the first week of July and the garden is doing its very best to be glorious.  The weather has other ideas.  Cold strong winds, pulses of heavy rain and general unkindness is being wreaked upon our beautiful summer flowers.  In occasional moments of calm on Sunday I picked material for today's two little vases.  Rosa Mundi, which features on her own because she is so lovely, and in the other vase orange calendula and nasturtium, complementary blue centaurea montana - all self-sown from last year, and yellow hypericum. One of the joys of rose petals is that you can dry them and the memory of those beautiful blooms can linger on for a while!

A few images of the garden in May.  A wonderfully sunny month, preparing for June.

I always think of George O'Keeffe's painting of a white convolvulus when I see this beautiful plant, rambling rampantly through the hedgerows.   I saw her painting of a single bindweed (or jimson weed, as she knew the plant) at an exhibition in London in the 1970s, and I have just read that a similar work,  Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 , was sold in 2014 by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, at auction to Walmart heiress Alice Walton for $44,405,000, more than tripling the previous world auction record for a piece by a female artist. So, this simple, white wild flower is really rather something special, but don't get me wrong, I would not want one romping through my garden!  She is a very invasive lady.  Having said that,  I wouldn't say no to her glamorous, luminous sky blue cousin, morning glory! Some of the flowers in my vase are not in the best condition as we have had a very wet and windy weekend, and they are so delicate, but I hope they give enough of ...

The trigger for my vase this week was Cindy's dreamy duo last Monday, feverfew and roses. https://customcomforts.blog/2020/06/15/this-weeks-bouquet-39/   On a walk at the beginning of last week I passed a big clump of feverfew, saw the flowers, thought of Cindy's glorious collection, and that was it!  I went back to pick a few stems and teamed them up with meadow vetchling, pineapple weed (which really does smell of pineapple when you crush the leaves), and a very exotic wild euphorbia, sun spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia).  I think they make a pretty handsome collection of wild flowers!

We love to celebrate the joy of a flower, but we often fail to appreciate the beauty of its next phase.  The seed head.  In my view one of the most beautiful seed heads, in terms of design and possessing an ethereal quality, is the dandelion dock.  We loved them as children, holding the stem in our fingers, (having carefully picked it so as not to dislodge the individual seeds, the pappus) and then blowing, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock ..... to discover the time.   The seeds are borne away on their little parachutes and I always thought they looked like fairies! This week I thought I would celebrate the dandelion clock, with the sun coming and going through the window! Scatterseed, one of the many names given to dandelions in days gone by, is one of The Lost Words Spell Songs.  It is a hauntingly beautiful collection of songs and here is the link to Scatterseed, sung by Chris Drever.  If you haven't listened to Spell Songs ye...

From left to right, Eglantyne, Lichfield Angel, and Gentle Hermione.  I think only roses could have such romantic names!  I picked this trio before the cold north winds blew through, worried that my planned vase might not happen if left until Sunday afternoon.  The vase is a Georgian cut glass pedestal bowl that my mother used for the trifle at Christmas when I was a child! The roses are so beautiful I am just going to leave it there!  I hope you enjoy these gorgeous beauties as much as I do!