rescued by a mug of greens

I was arranging flowers most of the day today and feeling too tired to create something new in the windowsill tonight, when I realized I didn't have to.... I could just add some pretty red zinnias to my mug of greens from yesterday.

Just greens

This makes me think of the title Mary Garner-Mitchell came up with for an all-green arrangement: 50 Shades of Green. In this green mug are parsley and basil that I'd been "storing" there, plus a couple of pale yellow peony leaves I snagged from day-before-yesterday's arrangement.

blue mistflower, yellow marigolds

I had a couple of marigolds leftover from yesterday's arrangement and I had dropped them into a carafe, where, today I added some blue mistflower (ageratum). The two arrangements look really pretty together.

The blue mistflower is really pretty, and unusually big, this year. Due to all the rain, no doubt.

marigolds, sunflower

This vase (three bottles in a cage) is just too easy to fill. In it tonight are a single sunflower (one I picked because it had fallen over onto the ground), a couple of rose hips (far left), some yellow-green peony foliage, some yellow marigolds, and a sprig of flowering basil, which I can now see is drooping (far right). 

knotweed order from knotweed chaos

First, here is the mess I was dealing with today: I pulled six wheelbarrow-loads of knotweed out of a border around the shed. I do this every year--sometimes twice. This year, please, please, I'll be sure to Roundup the knotweed before it gets big again.

Unfortunately, I love using knotweed in arrangements--its bamboo-like stems and, at this time of year, its dainty white flowers. So I'll miss it if I ever do really get rid of it. Today, though, I just grabbed a few stems, pulled the leaves off of them, and dropped them into a vase. (The vase I wanted to use was out of reach and I was too lazy to go get the stool, so I grabbed this vase just to keep the stems in water temporarily. Turned out, this was the better vase for them.) Also in the vase are a few stems of kerria (stems with green leaves and one tiny orange flower), which was growing near the knotweed. 

asters & lantana

These pink asters and neon orange lantana flowers are in a Kleenex box. The box has a plastic jar nested in it to hold water. I grabbed the box off a shelf because I thought it will look pretty with some zinnias in it, but they seemed to overpower the polka dots, so used asters and lantana instead. Very cheery!

peppers

This is a bowl of sweet and hot peppers. Like most every other vegetable gardener I know, I'm wearying of produce I can't eat fast enough and don't have the energy to "put up.:" Hence this bowl of peppers, which is much easier to create than a jar of roasted peppers but still triumphantly beautiful.