Monday Vase: Monday in Miniature

Saturday saw a trip to our local resale shop.  Results were two lovely vintage English bone china teacups and this equally vintage Japanese demitasse.  Yes, I was looking for something for a small Monday vase because I wanted to be able to use some Russelia stalks as the main feature.

As it turned out, I had plenty of material to draw from for this one.  Russelia equisetiformis in the centre...

...with a couple of blooms of Salvia greggii "Autumn Moon" and one of "Flame"...

...and a couple of clusters of Penstemon parryi, which is so loaded with side shoots that I thought it could spare a few flowers.

So the bouquet became a medley of red and pink, of trumpets and sage flowers, all in a rather colorful little cup and saucer.  I wish I had added something to show the scale as this is even tinier than it looks; the cup is all of one and a quarter inches (about three centimeters) tall.

The biggest surprise, however, was a couple of scarlet flowers from Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans).  I had already added a sprig of smallish leaves (most of the leaves on the plant were too large to stay in scale), and I needed a bit more.  I discovered the first blooming stem to the back of the plant.

In it went, completing this little nosegay in an old cup and saucer.

Many thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting this meme - not to mention providing an excellent excuse for Saturday's purchases...!

Happy Monday!

The Wild Tree

I have fully intended to take part in Lucy's tree watching meme at Loose and Leafy since January.  It is something I've been fascinated by but haven't gotten on with, partly because of sheer indecision about which tree.  At last, I present the wild Blue Palo Verde next door!

It is just over our wall in an empty lot.  Now the "empty lot" is nothing more or less than raw desert, not counting a bit of detritus that has washed in over the years.  As far as plants go, it features mostly Larrea tridentata, the creosote bush; but there are a few other plants scattered around, among them this one.  The tree is more like several trees: a small thicket of Parkinsonia floridum, the blue Palo Verde.  I've posted pictures of it before here because it is beautiful to photograph.  As I say, it grows up against the wall surrounding our property.

I knew I had better start soon or risk missing this tree's bloom time.  I didn't realize how close it might be to blooming until I went over and checked it today.  Clusters are already filling out on the branches.

It is a sparsely leafed tree with sprays of small, rounded leaves scattered throughout the maze of branches.

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One of the most beautiful things about Palo Verde trees is the bark, which is smooth and green.  The colour is important since it allows the tree to conduct photosynthesis even when leafless.  This is a not uncommon feature of desert plants, many of which deal with drought and heat by dropping their leaves in summer, thereby reducing water loss from the leaf surfaces.  Some Parkinsonia species have brilliant green bark, but P. floridum's is a soft grey-blue-green hue.

And, like so many other desert plants, it is protected by thorns.

I hesitated to post this tree, feeling that it would probably not change enough from month to month to remain interesting.  But this meme is a good opportunity to find out the little variations that one didn't know about.  So here is Parkinsonia floridum in March...

Damianita: the First Few Blooms

Damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana) was one of the very first plants to arrive in the small, sunny garden.  It went into the ground early last October and has grown there very quietly ever since.  It was quite small at that time and is not so very much larger now, but it has grown a little.  More noticeably, it has filled in at the base, which was quite scraggly at first.  There has been plenty of new growth for the last several weeks, and now, blooms...

Only a few so far, but the plant must have well over fifty buds on it, perhaps more like a hundred.  So I am expecting a very good showing in the next few weeks.

I have more yellow daisy plants of various species than I have ever had before.  But each one is welcome in its way, this one not the least.  The plant is a native of the Chihuahua Desert and, like Tetraneuris aucalis, is very visibly a desert plant with its dry, aromatic foliage, tightly held against the stems.  As for yellow daisies... well, many of the local desert natives are yellow daisies, from Damianita to the little annual chinchweed to Viguiera, the goldeneye.

Being native to the high desert, it is distinctly cold-hardy, said to survive winter lows around 0*F (-18*C).  Good drainage is recommended; so far it has accepted my soil well, though admittedly, it is in one of the best-draining parts of the garden.  It is said to respond well to heavy pruning should it become too woody.  Curiously, it receives more shade than I realized when I first positioned it; this has not been a problem so far.  Still, I would like to try one in the Dry Corner with its more intense sunlight, but I'm not quite ready to take a cutting off this little plant yet.

The flowers are small, perhaps an inch across, but with so many buds, it should be brightly visible anyway.  All in all, it's a very attractive plant with a sense of being still by its nature a wild variety just transplanted into a garden setting.  This is not to say it is in any way coarse; far from it - it is a very refined plant and not expected to grow much more than 2 ft (61 cm) tall and wide.  Perhaps it is most accurate to simply say that it looks very much at home here in my little bit of nearly raw desert.

Wordless Wednesday: Penstemon Parryi

Monday Vase: Sweet Faces

For this morning's Monday vase I was inspired by a small teacup and saucer decorated with violets.  The violas are blooming now, and their cheerful faces seemed perfect to combine with the cup.

Along with the violas, whose short, slender stems required plenty of other material, I added lavender...

.. and lemon thyme.  The thyme has just started sending out its delicate blooms.

The violas had to be arranged in a rather loose fashion.

The whole is just a small posy in a teacup.

It smells wonderful!

Linking, as always, to Cathy's Monday vase meme at Rambling in the Garden, where many other lovely vases can be viewed each week...

Happy Monday!