In a Vase on Monday: Simply Golden

The garden has been very calm and quiet this week (apart from the jays tearing up our grass for bugs!) and although we have seen very little sun, there is a glow to everything. Many of our trees are turning a gorgeous buttery colour and foliage in general is taking on a yellow tinge.

So when I saw that a couple of Calendula have survived the cold nights so far, I decided to make a golden vase for this week’s ‘In a Vase on Monday’. If you haven’t come across this meme before, do go and visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden where her vase will be posted and you will find links to other vases from around the world.

I started off with a stem of Euphorbia ‘Goldener Turm’, which can be seen in the foreground (the Sunshine Bed) in the first photo. The flowers are a lime green/golden colour in summer, but now the whole plant is glowing, stems included. It works well for holding stems of the white Anemone japonica (Honorine Jobert) upright – Honorine is still looking pretty and has a beautiful golden centre. The yellow flowers next to her are Chrysopsis speciosa ‘Sunnyshine’ (also visible in the Sunshine Bed in the first photo).

I used some darker Calendula, along with one of the last Cosmos flowers, for some richer colour.

Some Geranium leaves have turned a gorgeous red, so I added a couple of them too.

A late sprig of Alchemilla mollis was a nice surprise, and is one of the advantages of cutting back the plants mid-summer…. they look ugly for a week or so until the new foliage gets going, but I then occasionally get a second flush of flowers.

Then I added some yellow Tansy – I did the same with this plant, cutting it right down in the summer – it always recovers really quickly and flowers again. Persicaria ‘Blackfield’ and some Miscanthus add height to the vase – this time I used a pale Miscanthus called ‘Federweißer’. And finally, I couldn’t resist adding a sprig of a dark blue Aster at the back, A. dumosus ‘Blauer Gletscher’, which does indeed have a golden middle. You can just about spy it below, hiding behind the yellow Calendula.

What a joy it is to have so much colour still available for cutting and bringing indoors. Many thanks to our host, Cathy, for thinking up this meme one late autumn day some years ago now. I believe another anniversary can’t be far ahead.

And many thanks to you all for reading and commenting. Always lovely to hear from you!

Have a great week and Happy Gardening!