Back to work blues

Was today too much like hard work, with the return to work, school or college causing you to crawl out of bed at a snail's pace this morning, and long to go back to bed as soon as possible? Like a lot of people, I found the jolt back to my usual routine unwelcome and abrupt. My sister went back to her care home yesterday, and I always feel blue when she's out of London.

She's the blurry baby on the far left, and the tiny blur in a red coat on the right. It was raining on the day the gold-framed photo was taken.

Of course, it ended up raining today.

A Twitter observation on the blueness of this Monday got me to think about blue flowers. I'd already shared photos of bluebells this morning on Facebook and Twitter, as bluebells symbolise constancy (which I thought would be a comfort, given the unsettling return to work) as well as kindness and gratitude.

But more blue flowers wouldn't go amiss.

So here are some Monday blues. A lot of these are British flowers: bluebells, forget-me-nots, hyacinths, cornflowers, nigella, delphiniums, flax, lavender, muscari, sweet peas and scabious. And there are also roses, gentian, irises, and campanula. I've been a bit licentious about what counts as blue, but so are the people who name flower varieties! Blue flowers often have a fantastic scent as well, which is a lovely bonus. Happy Monday!

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.

Single dancing cosmos

A single cosmos, left over from one of the cut flower buckets, seemed to dance amongst the leftover gentian, scabious, snapdragons and garden roses.

I hadn't included it in the leftovers posy at first...

But then...

There was a single pale peach rose, which I left in a co-ordinating 'Pear and Rose Syrup' juice bottle from Brogdale. Such a sweet scent and a perfect bloom.

I'm doing things backwards today, and finishing with the main event. A big bouquet, stuffed with flowers from the garden - cosmos, ammi, borage, zinnias, phlox, cleome, delphiniums, panicum and escallonia. There were also gorgeous blue scabious and gentian, and dark crimson snapdragons from the market. Not much scent in this one, but lots of texture and a beautiful white-pink-red-blue colour scheme.

That's a wrap!

Buttonholes and botanical names

I started my Level 2 Diploma in Floristry a few weeks ago, and I am enjoying it so much. My tutors are lovely and give us lots of feedback, often making us do a design again and again until it’s better. I’m glad I started reading my huge RHS Encyclopaedia over the summer, as we will get tested on the botanical names of flowers and foliage throughout the year, although there are some names that I just can’t remember. Waxflower is ‘the one that begins “Cha”’, I say, but apparently that isn’t enough information. It’s Chamelaucium uncinatum, in case you were wondering.

Here are a few of the designs I’ve done so far. A line arrangement, a natural-tied posy, a table centre (‘It needs more flowers,’ my tutor said, ‘but it’s ok, because we know you had to make do with what we gave you’), and lots of buttonholes. I seem to have got the knack of buttonholes, which is a relief since I’ll be doing my first wedding next weekend. Eek. And if you’re concerned about the dishevelled look of the bottom gerbera in the first picture, that’s because I had to take it home on the train during Hurricane Katia. If someone was paying for them, I would have packaged them better!