In a Vase, on Monday – Deep Purple, Deep Blue

I took some photos last weekend of a vase filled with ‘Queen of the Night’ tulips and Narcissus ‘Thalia’ and Poeticus; unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to download or share them but it’s just as well – I really like how the tulips, indoors in their vase for several days, gently bent down to add a more artistic flair to the vase. Here is that vase now, with shots taken in the early morning, with the tulip petals closed, and mid day, after they opened to reveal their dramatic innards.

The white blob in the centre is another tulip, ‘Exotic Emperor,’ but you can’t really see it that well as the stem is quite short. I added some fronds of bronze fennel to soften the edges of this amethyst Hyacinth jar used as a vase.

After a few days indoors…

Here’s the spot in the garden where I planted all these gorgeous deep purple tulips last fall — I’m really impressed with the height of their stems – they’re much taller than most other tulips I’ve grown.

Queen of the Night and an unnamed orange tulip – photo taken a week ago; the stems are a few inches taller today and the blooms still hanging on!

I put together a smaller vase on Saturday morning, just before the skies opened. It also has the Poet’s Narcissus, this time with the deep blue (cobalt? Cerulean?) Camassia quamash. As a filler I cut a few twigs of Goldmound Spirea – its early spring foliage is so bright I thought it echoed the Camassia anthers, as well of course as the daffodil cup.

Happy Victoria Day, if you’re in Canada (so strange the late Queen is celebrated here but not in most of the UK, as I understand it…). If you’d like to see a few other vases from gardeners around the world, please visit Cathy at Rambling the the Garden.