Mother's Day 2016: Pretty in pink

A couple of almost wordless posts, since it's Wednesday. The rose is called Sudoku.

Leave it to compost

I had a wonderful English Literature tutor called Mark Loveridge when I studied at Swansea. It was he who decided I could do the undergraduate degree despite my inadequate A-level results,  he who had the sort of brilliant energy and sense of humour  that I'd only ever seen in films. And it was he who, when I felt like submitting a first draft of an essay, told me to, "Leave it to compost for a few weeks," before tackling it again.

Leave it to compost.

For someone like me, who overthinks, overplans, then gets frustrated and disappointed when things don't go to plan, or when I get tired or bored, this piece of advice was invaluable.

So, as much as I've felt guilty about not blogging over the summer, despite being on holiday from my current uni course and technically having more brain space to write, I think it was necessary to have a break. I've never been great at the regular, frequent side of blogging - as you can probably tell, it's more feast or famine with me. But the point of starting this blog was to enjoy it, and there's nothing enjoyable about feeling guilty!

So there are lots of things I could share here, and I will share some of them and let the others sit there. Maybe they'll compost for another four months and it'll feel good to share them at Christmas when it's wintry and gloomy outside, and we need a reminder of sunnier days.

In July, there was a surprise party for a lady who went out and bought herself pink peonies the day before. Luckily I was told before I went to the market! These flowers are a mixture of market flowers (pale pink phlox, snapdragons, white gentian) and home grown ones (red phlox, panicum/fountain grass, nicotiana, jasmine and sweet peas). I was given most of the containers to fill, and it was fun using unfamiliar vases.

Particularly this autumnal one.

And these beautiful, tall bud vases.

My Australian cousin was visiting briefly last week, and asked to go to the flower market. It was wonderful to have someone to help me choose, and to help me carry! As well as the market flowers, there were also buckets of sedum, roses, physocarpus, panicum and herbs from the garden, and foraged berries. It was also nice to use September flower in September.

Last weekend, I used the flowers for several bits, including this bouquet for a beautiful woman who liked the moody colours and chocolate scent of cosmos. This bouquet included one of my rare, homegrown dark sunflowers - which, unlike many of the sunflowers I've grown, has long enough stems to use in bouquets.

And of course, there were leftovers to enjoy. The chocolate cosmos scent fills the room - it's incredible that such a strong fragrance comes from such a dainty flower.

When these flowers die, you know where they'll end up? That's right - on the compost heap.

Chocolates for Juliet

I did some pink and chocolate brown bouquets a few weeks ago. It's one of my favourite autumn colour combinations (see this post a few years ago), but I added the peachy tones of Juliet David Austin roses this time.

I used dark cotinus foliage, pink snowberries (my autumn favourite!), astilbe, and sedum, cosmos, cleome, panicum and euonymus from the garden.

I love the mixture of textures here. (The first photo was taken in the evening and the second photo was taken in the morning - it makes a big difference to peachy Juliet!)

Speaking of Juliet - here's a leftover rose, opened up.

And more leftovers here.

Autumn isn't just about Chinese lanterns and falling leaves, you know!

Half term report

We were allowed to take all of our flowers home from college for half term. Some of them had only been delivered a few days before; others had been sitting in the fridge for a fortnight. Here’s what I made with flowers I had left over and those that some other students had given me.

This was a hand tied that I made in college – it wasn’t quite right, but when I took it home, I cut the string (that would normally be left alone), and it kind of fell into place.

And lastly, I had bought these beautiful Sweet Dolomiti and Peach Avalanche roses and pale pink astilibe to create a thank you bouquet for someone. I put the leftovers in my favourite container – my Elizabeth Blackadder ‘Poppies’ jug – and both these and the poppy heads, lisianthus and santini chrysanthemum vase stayed on my table while I did some work over the holiday. They were a joy to look at when work was taking its toll!