In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
Each Monday Cathy at Rambling In The Garden encourages us to share a vase highlighting what is growing in our gardens. Some of today’s flowers are from my garden, zinnias and a few small dahlias; the others grew a few hundred feet nearby.
This past week several sets of neighbors brought us flowers, lovely surprises. The friendliness and generosity of the gestures left us overwhelmed and grateful. Does anyone still write sentences like, “Such fun I had” and get away with it? Well, such fun I had arranging two gifts of dahlias and another of chrysanthemums. Since mums are coming into bloom around the garden I will save them for another day and focus on dahlias.
The large dahlias in today’s vase were grown by neighbor Eileen, an excellent gardener and first-time dahlia grower. (Somewhere she has their names recorded and I will try to update them later.) Eileen babied her plants all summer with spectacular results.
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
When my neighbor offered me these dahlias Sunday how could I resist? She even conditioned them for me and brought them to the back door. Choosing a container was difficult, eventually I settled on a black raku pot with a red accent in the front. At first I hid the red accent to feature the orange and black.
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
Then I rotated the container to return the red accent to front center. I had deliberately used red zinnias along with the orange-sherbet-looking dahlias and decided the red in the pot worked fine with the flowers.
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
Materials
Flowers
Dahlia ‘David Howard’ (apricot orange)
Dahlia ‘Gallery Art Deco’ (sunrise/sunset)
Dahlia (names unknown)
Zinnia
Foliage
Gardenia jasminoides ‘August Beauty’
Container
Red/black raku vase, Charles Chrisco, Chrisco’s Pottery
I mentioned we received several bouquets this week. The first gift, also of dahlias from Eileen’s garden, was Tuesday. I made several arrangements and photographed them together and apart, swooning all the while.
Eileen’s Dahlias
Eileen’s Dahlias
Eileen’s Dahlias
Eileen’s Dahlias
Later that evening I noticed some of my small dahlias from last week’s Monday vase had begun to fade, so I began replacing them with the larger dahlias. Before long I had refashioned the entire thing. This may be my favorite vase I’ve designed. My husband and I enjoyed this arrangement all week, marveling at the size, structure and color of the flowers.
Last Week’s Monday Vase Reinvented
Having such a generous quantity of materials for floral designs is fairly rare. As fall moves ahead this past week has felt like a celebration.
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
This is not the best photo but I include it to illustrate the size of today’s final arrangement, posed here beside a few other raku pots by the same artist.
In A Vase On Monday – Garden Gifts
Thanks to Cathy at Rambling In The Garden for hosting and giving us an opportunity to share flower designs across the world. Visit her to discover what she and others found to place In A Vase On Monday.
pbmGarden 
Neighbors like that are precious. You do such a fabulous job arranging flowers, Susie. I think you should create a YouTube video, or 2 or 3 – I’m sure they’d be a sensation!
That’s great! Thanks for the vote of confidence.
They are all beautiful arrangements, but I love the movement in Eileen’s dahlias… it’s something about the petals and their colouring.
Movement yes. Thanks Susan.
They are lovely!
Thanks Flower!
Such lovely blooms, for sure. And what fabulous neighbors you have. You have done them justice.
Thanks Beth! We lucked into this wonderful community 18 years ago where neighbors are friendly and supportive. We tried a garden club here early on and a couple of garden tours but those formal events didn’t catch on. The spirit is warm and caring though.
What kind neighbours. The dahlias are gorgeous.
Thanks! I agree. Love getting to test drive these dahlias.
Gorgeous again! Going to water my Dahlias now!
I thought my dahlias did well this summer throughout the drought until I saw how well-tended ones can look! So yes, baby them!
So there wasn’t a special occasion, just friendly and generous neighbours sharing their blooms with someone they know would appreciate them? I love the way you systematically worked through the various gifts, creating some very different vases as well as reworking last week’s vase. I particularly like the first photo of Eileen’s flowers – there is something appealing about the asymmetrical nature of it, and yes, I can see movement in it too. Thanks for sharing them all. Hope things are now at least reasonably OK with you and your husband, Susie
Yes. We’ve had a trying year but some better now. Our neighbors have been so supportive. The flowers really warmed my heart. I love that first vase also with the rather abstract design. I’m glad you can sense movement within it Cathy.
Good to know that things are improving for you both 😊
Love the ‘David Howard’ Dahlias!
David Howard is great dahlia. There aren’t many in this arrangement–one is at 11 o’clock of the big white dahlia. The other orange dahlias are much larger than David Howard and unfortunately I don’t know the name. They’re still looking good after a week.
Wow, they are all lovely Susie! Your neighbour has green fingers – those petals are exquisite!
Yes, she has a good touch growing her flowers. They’ve kept well all week so I’m still enjoying her nice gift.
Those are exemplary! It seemed that some people were sharing their dahlias early this year; and now it seems like they are being shared late. If they are slowing down here, I expect that they have been doing it for a while elsewhere. Eileen’s look like they are fresh out of summer.
They were long-lasting in the vase too.