August 7, 2012 -- hydrangea

Long day. No energy, so I'm posting something I took a photo of a few days ago. It's hydrangea blossoms drying by the "evaproation method" in the windowsill. See how low the water level in these vases is? By the time the water evaporates, the hydrangea blossoms will have dried, maintaining most of their color.

There are also a couple of plume poppy stems (with seed structures and blue-green leaves attached) in these glass vases.

August 6. 2012 -- garden in the windowsill

If this looks like a garden, that's because it sort of is. I wandered around the garden this morning picking everything that interested me and then dropped most of the stems into these wonderful vials on the windowsill. Included are zinnias, lettuce flowers (tiny, but a beautiful lemon yellow), old-fashioned petunias, a dahlia, some orange kerria flowers, pink phlox, and yellowing Japanese Solomon's seal leaves. In the background, if you look hard, you can see the rolled up hose--one of the few times it has been rolled up this summer!

August 5, 2012 -- same stuff

These are the same materials (zinnias, coleus, snapdragons) I used in yesterday's arrangment, but I've dropped them into a different container. The "container" is a ball of twine with a spice jar inside to hold water. I think I like this because it looks so autumnal--and I'm perishing for some autumnal weather!

August 4, 2012 - snaps added

Wish I had my real camera, because iPad camera isn't doing these colors justice. This is yesterday's arrangement with some apricot-colored snapdragons added. These, too, I picked just to keep the plants blooming.

August 3, 2012 - zinnias and coleus

I cut some small zinnias and blooming coleus back today, and these flowers and leaves wound up on the ground. I rescued them by gathering them up and dropping them into a mug of water. I fluffed them up just a bit before taking their picture on the windowsill.

August 2, 2012 -- orange peppers on sunflower pads

I was determined to disply these sunflower remnants in the windowsill today. They are just so interesting  (the flowers from which all the petals have fallen off but the green calyxes remain). I tried them in various vases but wound up placing them on the windowsill more like lily pads. Then I put an orange pepper on top of each one (secured through the bottom with a sharp stick). I can't say this is very pretty  (I'd like it better if the pepper on the right had a nice, long  stalk coming out of the top), but I have a feeling I'll use this technique again, maybe with something else on top of the sunflower pads.

August 1, 2012 -- passion vine

You can't even see, in this first photo, the reason I picked this vine:  for the fragrance of its flowers. But I also loved the droop of the vine, so I put it on the second level of the window frame so it could trail.

About midway down the vine are flowers that smell like...what? A website says they smell like  heliotrope, which is accurate but doens't help anyone who doesn't know what heliotrope smells like! Another website says their fragrance is "mildly fruity," but I find their fragrance strong.  Sorry, I just don't know how to describe it, but it's wonderful. Passion vine grows like a weed where I live, but I moved it from the wild into the garden where it is now sort of a pest, but a beautiful one.  

   Passion vine flowers above.