In a Vase on Monday

Joining in with Cathy’s wonderful group of gardeners for In a Vase on Monday

I have a few very confused little wallflowers in the garden. They are a variety that are supposed to flower in Spring and again in Autumn, but having looked quite pathetic all year, they are flowering now. Also in the tin ‘vase’ are some viburnum,  equally confused hebe, and some fennel fronds.

The containers are re-used items of household waste.
Last week I included my experimental ‘moss-on-a-plate’ and my cousin who lives in the Netherlands told me that Moss-on-a-plate is a thing. I Googled it and yes, lots of inspiring images came up. This spurred me on to make some more.

I managed to find some tiny fern plants in my garden. I just love all the shapes and textures of the moss and how it creates a little world of its own.

The Higgidy Pie dish was filled with grit and sandy compost

I used a torn brown paper bag to cover the plastic edges and a piece of rotting wood with moss on it, which I found in my rotting wood pile. Then I added some broken terracotta pot, a couple of tiny primrose plants, a celandine and a piece of lichen – all found in my garden.

I wondered where to keep the dishes, to give them the best chance of surviving and have put them in my new potting shed.

It went up in October and has very little in it so far. It smells all lovely and new and I need a few more shelves and hooks in there. I am sure Cathy would have filled it with cuttings and seed trays by now, but, being a fair-weather gardener, I am happy to gaze at it and enjoy its newness until I get a burst of enthusiasm for the garden again.

Do you like to find things in your garden or nearby hedgerows to put in a vase at this time of year? If so, pop over to Rambling in the Garden for some delightful inspiration.

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In a Vase on Monday – Vintage Plough Share

Eucalyptus clippings and self-seeded wallflowers in a glass vase and a little found shrimp paste pot; an old brick found on the beach, and put in the fire to clean off the black tar; a vintage plough share, washed and waxed with furniture wax, and some rusty old sheep wire formed into a spiral.

I was walking along a farm track with my daughter and her three children a couple of weeks ago and spied a piece of rust embedded in the chalk and rubble of the track. (Not this track but one very similar – this photo was taken on Friday)

Oooh Rust! I cried! and bent down to try to pick it up. I couldn’t get the piece out, so said I would come back another day to retrieve it and bring a tool to work it free. The children were determined to get it out for me, and with some sticks and stones they only took about 5 minutes to free it. I always have my rucksack with me, which was just as well as it was heavy to carry home.

A precious (well to me anyway) piece of farming history. My son-in-law recognised it as a single furrow plough share, from the horsedrawn era and spent a bit of time looking online to see if he could identify it more precisely. It might have come from something like this one.

Just the sort of plough that my Grandfather would have walked behind on his farm in West Dorset.

When I sent this photo to my son-in-law later, he said it looked like an alien snail

So the working title for this little sculpture is ‘Snailien’.

What does it look like to you?     What would you call it?

It’s catching – Little Miss M, 8, has now started her own rust collection!

and this is Miss E (13) having her first welding lesson from her Dad, what a cool Dad he is!

It turns out she was making a flower/plant for me! and when I got home that night she had planted it in my garden!

Oh my! Better than diamonds – this makes me so happy.

This is a great fat rainbow I saw on my walk on Friday – it looked so much closer and bigger in reality. Maybe there is a pot of rust at the end of it! 😉

Joining Cathy who is Rambling in her Garden this morning and giving us a Little Love to help us grow.

❤ 🙂 ❤