Rosie's anemones and one popping poppy

These little white anemones were a gift from a friend. Rosanne Shalf brought me not only some of these cut flowers but some plants as well. This is at least the third time she's shared this plant with me and I have yet to succeed with it, but maybe the third time is the charm. It grows like a weed in Rosie's yard. The red-orange flower is a poppy bud about to burst forth from its bud scales. I wouldn't be surprised if it has unfurled by tomorrow morning. This is the kind of thing I should sit around and watch, but can't (or don't).

one beautiful poppy

This one gigantic, orange poppy bloomed earlier than its brethren, and it was under the branch of a shrub so I almost overlooked it even though its color is electric. These perennial poppies were a gift from a Hanover gardener named Mrs. Gilman, whom I knew only through her poppies (which stopped me in  my tracks one day as I drove down Rt. 623 on day about 20 years ago). "I'ts just a bed of beauty," Mrs. Gilman said about her own poppies.  I can tell Mrs Gilman has died, because her garden is gone and young people seem to be living in her house, but, although I never even knew her first name, she's in my thoughts every year when these poppies bloom.

Here's what the posture of the poppy was before I propped it up with a euphorbia stem. The others, growing more out in the open, will have straighter stems.

buttercups, violas, Jacob's ladder--and John's ladder

Almost anything looks pretty in these little vases, but I think they're particularly suited to violas and buttercups. Right now the viola stems are stretching and they're just right for picking. My buttercups, on the other hand, have been mowed once, and their stems were almost too short to pick, but I found some long enough to use in these vases. There's also some Jacob's ladder (sweet little blue flower) in these arrangement, and I thought it was somehow appropriate that you could see John's ladder out the window!

peony bud in wine bottle

Did this last night but got distracted and didn't post it. This peony bud is at the "marshmallow" stage--soft to the touch, so I could force it open by putting the stem in hot water if I wanted to. I like looking at just the bud, though.

false lupine, iris, asparagus, etc.

This was an attempt to do something simple that wound up complicated. I wanted to do an arrangement in this pretty little blue vase but the first thing I tried--yellow wood poppy flowers--didn't suit me. I kept trying and trying and wound up with way more stems in this vase than seemed called for. Included are yellow false lupine (Thermopsis), a small, pale blue bearded iris flower, some English comfrey flowers, some asparagus spears, and a couple of ajuga flowers. I'd have thrown the kitchen sink in if there had been room! The most fun part of doing this arrangement was watching the light play on it as the wind moved branches outside the window.

jonquils and peony foliage on new windowsill

This morning, when a phoebe couldn't find her way out of the open door of the shed, I opened a window for her, so she wouldn't keep bumping into it. The phoebe escaped and I discovered a windowsill I'd never thought to use before. So this afternoon, after making this arrangement, I carried it to the shed windowsill, where I looks really pretty! In this little Japanese vase are several tiny jonquils and some peony foliage.

wedding leftovers plus sorrel

This is leftover wedding flowers--two yellow ranunculus flowers, pink azalea, and some other bits and pieces of flowers and foliage. It's amazing these flowers still look as good as they do, given that they've been languishing, unattended, in a bucket. The sorrel, leftover from another day, is definitely on it's way out, but I liked the way its yellowing leaves looked in t his arrangement.

Here are the ranunculus and azalea flowers up close. The ranunculus are such a beautiful pale yellow!