Thanks to my friend Lily for introducing me to THRIFT TOWN, I’ve been able to purchase some amazing vases for even more amazing prices — this beautiful little turquoise martini glass, for example: a whole whopping $1.99!!!! (The larger green glass vase featured in the Living Room #5 pink rose arrangement, as another THIFT TOWN example, was much more “high-end: $4.99!!!!!!!)
We do have a few expensive vases that we use at Fern Lodge; but just thought it would be nice to share the fact that it is NOT necessary to become broke in order to have indoor floral beauty — simplicity is often the key to the best looking flower arrangements anyway!
Thanks to Rozanne loaning me her beautiful blue & green vase, here we have the soft orange Hybrid Musk rose “Ghislaine de Feligonde”, the lemon & honey fragrant yellow rose “Golden Celebration”, the purple ‘Polish Spitit’ Clematis, Penstemon “Midnight” and “Blue Springs”, and a recycled sprig of Lavender!
By mid-summer, the orange Nasturtium have so completely covered this old redwood stump that usually you can no longer see the stump itself; but this being only May, you can see a lot of other things also nearby: the silvery feather-like foliage is a low-growing Artemesia; the bright pink Polyantha rose in front is “Gabrielle Privat” (1931); and to the lower right in this pic, is the last blooms of Narcissus ‘Sir Winston Churchhill’ — but the real summer workhorse here is still the Nasturtium!
I took quite a few pics of the Clematis blooming on Anna Lisa’s arbor over Mother’s Day weekend… and to think that when Anna Lisa first offered this wonderful structure for me to place at the garden gate, I was actually hesitant about the idea — and now I can’t imagine being without it (LOL)!
When I first planted roses inside the deer fence in Feb. or 2008, for some reason I decided to plant a lot of the sunny yellow rose varieties all together in the NW corner. Although the soft yellow English rose “Charlotte” is the most noticeable rose in this photo, other yellow or apricot roses growing nearby include the following: “Graham Thomas”, “Teasing Georgia”, Malvern Hills”, “Singing in the Rain”, “Buff Beauty”, “Pat Austin”, and “Lady Emma Hamilton” — to name just a few!
Appropriately named “Grace”, this is one of hybridizer David Austin’s newer rose varieties. Seen here with bearded Iris foliage and the lime-green Golden Oregano ground cover, the stems reach out in a nice arch, dangling their blooms over the wooden retaining wall.
There are several vines and other flowering treasures growing on or near Anna Lisa’s arbor, including this fragrant white bloom of Mandavilla laxa (AKA “Chilean Jasmine”) poking its head through: but the star of the show, of course, is the ‘Polish Spirit’ Clematis…
Seen growing here with a snowy while Foxglove (Digitlis purpurea ‘Alba’) the old Hybrid Musk rose “Ghislaine de Feligonde” (Turbat, 1916) might be quite a mouthful to say, and even more difficult to pronounce; but nobody can argue with its beauty & grace being very easy-on-the-eyes!
With the pink single-petalled Hybrid Musk rose “Ballerina” (Bental, 1937) in the foreground, here you can see Anna Lisa’s arbor behind it, smothered in the purple blooms of Clematis viticella ‘Polish Spirit’ by Mother’s Day — and yet I still had plenty of blooms for picking indoors to spare!
Deliciously perfumed, this is another rose that is insanely popular over in England and Europe, but not as often seen here in the USA. Bred by hybridizer David Austin in 1989, it’s become one of the Fern Lodge favorites for swooning over; so go ahead, burry your nose in the middle of it, and breath in deeply… Ahhhh!!!!!!!
Fern Lodge has a long-time love affair with Wisteria, the vines gracing our main patio for many years now. After its spectacular bloom in late March & early April, the plants immediately start sending out long, far-reaching “whips”… If they are growing in an ideal direction, we try to train them to continue growing onward (for future bigger, wider-reaching spring displays); but if these whips are growing out into the patio, dangling in people’s faces while they try to eat their lunch, then I try to clip them off before they get too annoying — and then add them to the indoor flower arrangements!
Thanks to my friend Lily for introducing me to THRIFT TOWN, I’ve been able to purchase some amazing vases for even more amazing prices — this beautiful little turquoise martini glass, for example: a whole whopping $1.99!!!! (The larger green glass vase featured in the Living Room #5 pink rose arrangement, as another THIFT TOWN example, was much more “high-end: $4.99!!!!!!!)
We do have a few expensive vases that we use at Fern Lodge; but just thought it would be nice to share the fact that it is NOT necessary to become broke in order to have indoor floral beauty — simplicity is often the key to the best looking flower arrangements anyway!