May 14, 2011

Most of what I picked yesterday, I didn't want to use this afternoon when I started this arrangement (although, with the exception of one iris blossom, it was still pretty fresh-looking). I found this little green jug in the barn while cleaning up there, and walking back to the house in the rain, the orange coreopsis caught my eye. First thing I dropped into the jug was stinking hellebore I had picked yesterday (that would provide balast for the thin, thin, coreopsis stems), then added some shepherd's purse (a pretty little weed I spotted while picking the coreopsis), then one compound leaflet of Mahonia aquifolia, a shrub I love that has some old leaves with lots of color at this time of year. Most of its leaflets had fallen off by the time I got to the house, but a couple of leaflets--one with a gigantic bite taken out of it--were still hanging on. Jammed all into vase with a great twisty wisteria vine I'd pruned off the house earlier. You can't really see it in the photo, but the wisteria vine is there--reaching for the curtain rod the way it was reaching for rocking chairs on the front porch! Then, because they were making this conglomeration too busy, I clipped off all the stinking hellebore flowers (but the stem is still in the neck of the jug providing support).