It’s been a while since I blogged here, but I’ve been very busy elsewhere. However, today I had time to pop into the front garden and pick a few stems for a vase. See more lovely arrangements of garden flowers on Cathy’s blog, or by searching #IAVOM on twitter and instagram.

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we’re in lockdown in the UK, and only essential travel is allowed. But as usual, I’m working from home, and continuing with marketing and communication for Vastern.co.uk. the timber yard and sawmill. We’re determined to be back in business soon but had to close the site for the time being. At the bottom of this post I’ll share a video about this that I was proud to put together… I’ve also been involved in a national conference about planting more trees, and I’m very grateful to still be working right now when so many others are unsure where their next paycheck will come from.

But after an exceptionally busy couple of weeks, I’m due some time off and so this morning the cat and I explored the front garden. While she pounced at shadows, I collected a small jug of spring stems to display indoors for a vase on Monday.

So in a vase today I have snakehead fritillaries, beautiful blooms from bulbs I planted last year. There’s also some euphorbia, photenia and hyacinths in the pot.

The euphorbia, aka spurge, has lovely pale green five petaled flowers, and contrasts nicely with the shiny red leaves of photenia ‘red robin.’

I added a few stems of a paler green spurge, and a few blue grape hyacinths to the mix…

These stems made a suitable backdrop to show off the star of the show, the snakehead fritillary. Two tall stems complete the display.

The finished vase is a cheery sight, and putting a little display of garden flowers together is a wonderful way to start the week. Maybe today you have the time to give it a go?

Take care everyone and #StayHome.

Jen xx

PS – here’s that video I mentioned about the temporary shutdown at our yard. I’ve definitely got better at making videos this year, but anyone who knows what they’re doing can see this is a bit of a hack job… Don’t tell everyone the movie trailer generator does all the flashy stuff for you… 😉

Here’s an epic interpretation of our everyday activity of cutting English oak.

And then here’s the news of this unwelcome interlude…

Hope your plants are doing well even if plans may be on hold for a while!

J x