It’s a long weekend in most Canadian provinces – an extra day to enjoy the summer, and reason enough to put together two small vases of flowers from my garden. If you’d like to see cut flowers in vases from around the world, visit Cathy’s blog – Rambling in the Garden.
I have a ton of the usual purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, and also a growing number of an unknown white variety that somehow appeared about 10 years ago. Honestly, I can’t remember buying it – perhaps it was a gift… Anyway, a neighbour has long admired them and, last fall, I wrapped duct tape strips around a half dozen or so white Echinacea flower stalks. This past April I dug up those clumps for him. Fast forward to last Friday when he and his wife were coming for dinner. I put together this vase of almost all white coneflowers, mainly for him to enjoy. Imagine my chagrin and embarrassment when he reported that every single one of the transplants has bloomed purple this summer! Oh well.
My second vase has more variety, and is the first of the year to feature the wonderful Zinnia! My six by six foot plot of seed started plants is now awash in colour so you should expect to see them until frost.
Adding volume to this Hyacinth vase of flowers are cuttings from two white, non native, wildflowers very common here – Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) and a type of chamomile – it just appeared in the kitchen garden this year, a wind blown seed. You can see it better from this top view:
Also added, for a spike of white height, is this Liatris – I don’t know what variety. I just like it so collect and scatter seed all over.
County Gardening 
Enjoyed all the bright colours and different forms very much!
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🙂
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Oh how ironic is that with the white echinacea!! I like your mix of native and wild and cultivated flowers this week, which show how easily we look on some pretty plants as ‘weeds’ and therefore undesirable – none of your wild ones today are undesirable at all (unless they attempt domination in your garden of course!!)
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I so agree – I do need to cut back spent flowers before seed spreads everywhere though!
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How lovely all your floral specimens are….my favourite are the Queen Anne’s Lace….so delighted I can grow it where I live.
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Thank you Cath! It’s one of my favourite non native, naturalized wildflowers. A favourite of ladybugs also!
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The white Echinacea might be ‘White Swan’. Echinaceas don’t do well at all in my climate but that was one that at least came back for a second season here. Seeing yours, I’m regretting that I haven’t planted any in a few years. Zinnias are among the wonders in the summer garden. I think the butterflies know when mine are flowering before I do.
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White Swan seems to be the most common variety, doesn’t it? You’re likely right. The first year I planted Zinnias I couldn’t believe the butterflies! Now they’re a staple in the garden.
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Beautiful vases. I love the white echinacea and it is perfect in your vase.
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Thank you Donna – it’s certainly one of my favourite perennials. I’m lucky it thrives in my heavy soil!
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A lovely mix, Chris. Zinnias are a lifelong favorite of mine.
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Thank you!
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The hyacinth vase is just the right size and the collection of your stems nicely sets it off.
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Thank you!
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Does the liatris naturalize? I mean, is it a perennial that blooms reliably annually? I know. . . I should just appreciate the cut flowers.
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Yes, it’s a great perennial. Produces gazillions of seeds, some of which will actually land and germinate. I’ve collected them and started indoors. They produce a bulb/corm thing…not real roots.
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Wow, that is interesting . . . but not what I expected. Someone planted a few here last year. I was skeptical, but they really did come back as perennials. I was not expecting that either. (Many perennials do not get satisfactory chill here.) They are still very wimpy,, but I don’t know if it is because of the lack of chill or because they are still new. I would be impressed if the come back next year. I would be pleased if they lasted several years!
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