FLOWERS ARE FOR PICKING

Whenever I post photos of my (often large) containers of cut flowers there will be people who say; ‘Beautiful Pauline, but I can’t bear to pick mine.‘ I have no such qualms. 😎 For me it’s simply an added and wonderful way of enjoying the garden. I must admit the formal art of arrangement is outside my field of knowledge. As long as they look OK to me I’m happy.

The tradition is definitely inherited. My mother always had flowers in the house, especially to welcome guests. A special memory is the perfume of Christmas lilies mingling with the piney fragrance of our Christmas tree.

Virtually anything can be used as a display vessel. For example, tall, Siberian iris are great in old watering cans.

I use red and white camellias as an encouragement to my Sydney Swans footy team during the finals. 🏉They rarely win the big prize, but never mind. 😰

The laundry in our new house is also to be a flower room. It opens to the garden and in a big wall cupboard there are multiple shelves of vases. I’m going to put a couple of Margaret Olley prints on the opposite wall when I get them framed..

I bought this little cornucopia vase in Boston. It’s Lennox china. I had admired a full Lennox dinner service at the White House a few days before, but this was all I could afford. 😍 It’s sitting beside a photo of my mother, as lily-of-the-valley was one of her most loved flowers.

This tiny jug is a 19thC measuring cup (an eighth of a cup), perfect for white daphne.

Here is pink daphne in a favourite vase. I bought it for a couple of dollars in an oddments box. It’s dark purple, but changes colour dramatically when the sun shines through it.

Here is a touch of charity shop art-deco. I feel this giant rose deserves a name, but I’ve long forgotten it.

For me, ‘flowers’ is a broad term which includes leaves. And sometimes my container is just a hole in a piece of wood. 😍

I am currently in the process of a serious declutter, but in my opinion you can never have too many books or too many flower containers.

In the old days, owners of estates were able to cultivate separate cutting gardens.

No doubt some people still do. It’s completely understandable for owners of show gardens who wish to present their property at its peak. I will never be in that exulted company, so I’m happy to whip off a favourite, fragrant rose.

Below is another beautifully scented rose. It’s Hot Chocolate, in a vintage H & K Tunstall jug.

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO CREATE A RAISED BED CUTTING GARDEN, CLICK HERE