British Flowers Week: Eggcups, the new jam jars

It's British Flowers Week again, and my summer flowers are filling my corner of South East London with colour, scent and texture.

Last week I filled three vases (and four eggcups) with them - from scented Harlequin sweet peas that I managed to grow from seed I saved last autumn to self-seeded and deliberately grown nigella, from pretty white alliums that were an experiment in planting unused onions to huge 'Galahad' delphiniums grown from seed, and from French lavender (bought in Mayfield Lavender) to British-grown French marigolds.

I love China blue and white, and so I used this Portmeirion vase and mixed a few blue nigella and flowering physocarpus with the white alliums, delphiniums, ammi majus, and hesperis.

This vase and matching eggcups are so cute - I thought the bright colours of the calendula, cornflowers and osteospermum would suit them. I don't think I'll tire of jam jar posies in a hurry, but eggcup flowers are a wonderful, miniature alternative.

And this lime green glass vase was made for summer flowers. There are plenty more to come. In the meantime, you can read more about British Flowers Week here.

No use crying...

I saved my first, perfectly-formed delphinium to use in my new, second-hand vase. I arranged it with some white scented hesperis (sweet rocket), white roses and 'Nora Barlow' aquilegia from the garden and greenhouse. But as I turned around so I could move back to quickly photograph it, I heard a crash.

Gutted. After much cursing (sorry neighbours for the morning wake up call) I chucked the flowers in this old, first-hand vase, and they don't look nearly as good.

Mind you, despite being broken in the middle, the delphinium lasted another six days.

On the same morning as Vase-gate, I made a small posy of my flowers for Sara, the Garden Museum's sustainability trainee, who has just left to go on maternity leave. No disasters with that, fortunately! There were calendula, tagetes, aquilegia, and gorgeous-smelling sage and thyme.

And on Saturday I made a posy with another delphinium and my first few nigella.