Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Seattle, Washington!
I was gifted a flat of paperwhites in bloom this week – one lonely bulb per pot – crying out for some equally lovely companions in a holiday arrangement. So yesterday, I clipped from here and there in the garden and created this trio of vases to adorn our Christmas dining table tonight.
Three vases filled with festive and LOCAL vines, leaves, branches, blooms, buds and JOY!
The paper whites started it all – and I sought pretty plants with winter interest to accompany them.
In addition to the paperwhites, here’s what the vases contain:
- Pieris japonica (Lily-of-the-valley shrub)
- Camellia in bud
- Bay tree stems
- Daphne odora in bud
- Dusty Miller
- Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’
- Variegated Ivy
- Evergreen fern fronds
- Narcissus (Paperwhites)
As I prowled through my mostly dormant landscape, each one of these plants reminded me how much I have to value in the winter garden. If you plant for four seasons, with intentionality, those woody ornamental shrubs really deliver! I found myself thinking: “Make more room for Pieris!” as I only have three and they’re relatively young shrubs. But those chains of blooms, deep pink and delicate, are simply sublime dangling out of the vases.
Close up, the tangle of stems reflects a perfect moment in time – in my garden and in the season.
The Daphne – only planted two years ago next to the backyard patio where I will smell its fragrance in winter – well, I gingerly snipped three stems, each with a bud – and each from a lower/back part of the shrub. I still want to enjoy Daphne outdoors, as well as indoors!
I gaze at the Viburnum ‘Dawn’ every day – it’s just outside my office window and such a welcome a note of color – intense pink! – in December and January. Even the Dusty Miller, marginally winter hardy here in Seattle, had hung on long enough to give me a silvery cluster of soft leaves for each vase.
I’m launching a new project next week, appropriately called “The Slow Flowers Challenge” – and so making this holiday trio of arrangements has been my warm-up exercise.
If you’re ready to join me, start collecting your vases, eyeing botanicals in your landscape or neighborhood, and dreaming about a year of flowers in your life.
Happy Day, dear friends.
