May 15, 2011--Broken gourds

This was so much fun, but it is going to be very hard to explain. While gardening this morning I found lily stem full of buds on the ground. Ouch. Voles have found this patch of lilies. They are short ones I bought by accident, but they've been flourishing, and I'm distressed the voles have found them. (I usually plant lily blubs in sharp gravel to deter voles, but I can't remember if I did it with this patch.) Anyway, I saved the stem with green buds and brought it inside with a couple of broken gourds I'd also encountered in the garden. The gourds' bases had cracked off over the winter, but the tops were intact and it had occurred to me that they would hold water, and be very pretty as vases, if I could figure out a way to support them with their stem ends pointing down. Solution: two heavy, black pin holders into which I jammed the stem end of each gourd. The necks of the gourds do hold water and their broken bases (now the lips of the gourd "vases") are gorgeous. Below, first, is one of the gourds the way it looked before I jammed its stem into the pin holder to make it stand upright (photo also lily stem slipped into it).  Second photo shows how that "vase" worked in windowsill. Much prettier than photo shows. Contents--lily stem with buds delivered to me by voles along with one stem of pale blue amsonia flowers leftover from May 13. At base of the vase, I needed some moss to cover the pin holder but didn't want to walk that far, so I grabbed some leaves outside the front door and used those. The window screen looks wacky in the photo (same thing happened with I was photographing the luna moth on May 12), and I'd love to know how to avoid that (photographically.)

The next series of photos shows results of doing the same thing with second broken gourd. This one was smaller. Had to close the curtains to make its delicate flowers show up. They, too, are from May 13 gleanings--what's left of the California poppy (graceful stem. leaves, seed pod) and one stem of snapdragon. Wish I could remember where I got these snapdragon seeds. VERY different from ordinary snaps---looser, and, to my eye, less "floristy" looking.  This is the second year they've bloomed in the garden. Thought I had bought the seeds from Select Seeds, but I didn't see the same snaps in their catalog this year. Anyway, creating these gourd vases was LOTS of fun, and, like everything gourdy, they'll last forever.