One of my Facebook friends came up with this paraphrase of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ – in Narnia it is ‘always Winter, never Christmas’ – and I have shamelessly stolen it as the title for this week’s In a Vase on Monday, as that is very much how I am feeling today, snuggling up against our gas fire, looking out once again on a snowy garden.
Thanks as ever to Cathy from Rambling in the Garden, for hosting this lovely meme, which encourages us out into the garden to seek blooms to cut for a vase on even the coldest of days. And Happy Blogoversary to Cathy who is celebrating six years of blogging today!
This week I have taken three little Tête-à-tête narcissi, having enjoyed these so much in other contributors’ vases over the last few weeks, and placed them in a small plain white vase together with a couple of the hellebores from our front garden which are still going strong, and a solitary hyacinth – presumably an indoor bulb planted out by a previous resident, as a reminder to myself to do the same with my own indoor hyacinths once the snow subsides.
The white and blue Swedish tray was a gift from my mother, and I think feels suitably wintry, while also carrying the promise of Spring with that little blue bird nestling amongst the flowers.
All were picked from our front garden and still had snow on when I brought them inside this morning!
Beautiful! I love your tray! It reminds me of The Moomins. Ans your beautiful blues and yellows in the vase. I was going to pick narcissus to go with my hyacinths, but got distracted by primroses. Also my hands were numb and I needed to come inside!
I remember reading/hearing once that narcissus kill other flowers in a vase because of the poisonous sap. Not sure if this is true, but the sap once gave my daughter an allergic reaction so I have always treated them with caution. Let me know how your blooms survive!
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Oh I didn’t know that about narcissi – will let you know!
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A happy, little vase. The blue and white plate is nice too, perfect backdrop.
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A brave showing against the endless winter – lovely, esp. nice against that pretty plate.
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All these nods to children’s literature – the Moomins as well as the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe! The latter is the first book I can actually remember reading, probably atthe age of 6 or so, first borrowed from the library but i reread it so often that pages dropped out and my Mum bought a new copy for the library and taped together the original, which I still have of course. Ah, memories – for some reason I used to sit in a cupboard with a torch to read… 😉 You were so kind to rescue these wintry blooms and bring them into the warm and perhaps the little blue bird on the pretty plate will breathe life into your garden in the absence of Aslan…
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These shout Spring! You are lucky to have them.
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Oh I agree with your title as snow covers us still….but I love seeing your flowers as you are able to get some blooms.
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The indigo fantasy flowers on the tray are also echoes of Wardrobe fantasy. Indigo against the glowing yellow of the daffodils makes both sing.
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A delightful combination. So sorry it’s still so wintery in your neck of the woods!
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I’m sorry that you’re still suffering from the winter blues! The Narcissus and hellebores are spots of sunshine, though. I hope old man winter’s kicked to the curb soon. Spring can’t be denied indefinitely.
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Your vase is so pretty against that blue and white tray, and a defiant stand against Old Man Winter. Surely he’ll be off soon.
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Love the blue china and am happy to see bulbs from your garden.
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Is that a second year (or more) hyacinth? I always think that they look like that if they get inadequate chill, but your climate seems plenty cool enough.
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Definitely more than second year but still look ok in the ground outside.
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It looks better than ok. I do not grow them at all because they do not bloom after the second year, and many bloom only once. They are like expensive annuals.
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It’s a lovely little vase, showing spring is not far off! We have had snow too, but my narcissi are not flowering yet. I really sympathise with you – hopefully by Easter it will warm up a bit!
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Oh your vase is definitely singing spring to me and the Swedish tray makes for the perfect background. Hopefully with spring’s official arrival today it won’t be long until you can turn off that gas fire and get out into the garden.
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