After two perfect days which were more like Autumn than the first days of Winter, today’s Queen’s Birthday holiday started out with rain. It was a nice day to stay a little longer in bed, but eventually I ventured out to take photos from under the awning on the porch.
Iris unguicularis is flowering, which always reminds me of Beverly Nichols who called her a ‘prima donna’. Luckily, (and touch wood) she seems to like me, although I have only one, rather than 20 as he did. From ‘Down the Garden Path’ :
The best of all is the Iris stylosa, (or the Iris unguicularis, if you are feeling high hat). It is a real sky blue . . . not the deep blue of summer, but the brilliant paler blue of a frosty January day. The lower petals have gold patches in their centres, spotted with purple. If you want a finer flower than this in winter, you had better go and lock yourself up in your greenhouse and sing hymns.
I hate to waste flowers, so as usual some of my vase are ‘found flowers’, today it’s Canna ‘Panache’ and Salvia ‘Indigo Spires’. Both were usurping the space of citrus trees in different parts of the garden.
Perhaps because of its subtle colours I expected Canna ‘Panache’ to be a bit refined, but it quickly shot to 2 meters tall and wide, shoving up against a young ‘Harwood Late’ Orange tree. I will have to find another nice moist place for it.
Indigo Spires is allowed to go wild because the bees love it, but it had so covered the Kaffir Lime that I had forgotten that it was there, and was startled to see a leaf reaching out, like the arm of a drowning swimmer.
Roses Gertrude Jekyll and Strawberry Hill with Iceberg, and the pink fuschia didn’t pay any attention to the frost 2 weeks ago. The little pink buds are Rose Nahema.
Those in the Northern hemisphere are moving from Spring into Summer, with Cosmos, Astrantia and more in vases at Rambling in the Garden.
Absent Gardener 
Your vase doesn’t look like winter at all or autumn for that matter much more high spring; it’s gorgeous.
Thank you 🙂 Some of these will flower again in Spring
So pretty and bountiful considering the frost.
Thank you 🙂
Beautiful bouquet, Cath. Despite the frost, there is still a lot of beauty to work with in your garden. I wish all the best salvias were hardy in my zone, but alas we can only enjoy them for one summer and late in the season at that.
The Salvias are incredibly useful, and so easy to grow from cuttings. Still, you get Peonies, bleeding heart, and snowy fields 🙂
That is true – I must count my blessings!
Your vase is just lovely. The soft blues and pinks are perfect with touches of white. Lots of interesting things and the rose buds are adorable.
Thank you 🙂
What a joy IAVOM is! Wonderful to be able to experience Iris unguicularis in June!!!! The colours in your vase are, as Christina says, almost echoing the colours of our early summer. I do particularly love that tiny hint of yellow that the ‘Panache’ brings to your arrangement – it’s the kind of creamy colour that you see with pink in the flowers of honeysuckle, isn’t it? Thanks for sharing.
Panache is like honeysuckle in the blossom part. Not so beautifully scented though. Most honeysuckle is considered to be too rampant to grow here – too dangerous to the native bush. I have a white flowered one which is a shrubby one, but it’s not as nice as the yellow and pink one.
Yoir vase is gorgeous once again Cath, and doesn’t in the least suggest winter to me, but rather spring or summer!
Thank you! Most of these will flower again in Spring I hope, except that particular Iris.
Your arrangement is absolutely beautiful. What is that blue flower surrounded by daisies in the second last photo?
Thank you 🙂 that is a lace cap hydrangea – Hydrangea ‘Blue Wave’ I think. It’s an unusually small flower, one last one when all the others have gone over.
Add that to my list
That a lovely collection of flowers, and I love the iceberg rose…in the not at all chilly arrangement.