I’m usually too busy on Mondays to participate in ‘In a Vase on Monday’ but we’re off this week and I was up bright and early for gardening (hence the low morning light in this photo). I’m usually relatively reserved about cutting flowers to bring inside as I don’t like to plunder the borders, but I had to dead-head the lupins and tame the euphorbia oblongata, so from there I added some honesty seedheads and a bit of penstemon foliage (I think this one is Andenken An Friedrich An or something like that – it’s very vigorous and if I’m honest I find its foliage more interesting and useful than its flowers, which are pleasant enough in a deep burgundy-ish red, when they bother to appear).
Pop along to Cathy’s page at http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com to see the other IAVOM posts and take a peek at her beautiful garden whilst you’re there!
Notes from the Under-Gardener 
Very pretty, like you I prefer to see the flowers growing in the garden than cut and inside, but I do understand that everyone likes flowers differently.
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I do love cut flowers, but it’s taken me so long to get the densely planted effect I wanted in the borders that I can’t bear to deplete them! If I had more space I’d set some aside as a dedicated cutting garden.
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Yes,deadheading and culling are great reasons to collect things for a vase! But seriously, apart from the fact that cutting blooms generally encourages more it is not difficult to be selective so you wouldn’t notice something had been cut – and there is then the pleasure of seeing the blooms inside as well as out…
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This is a really good point actually. As I start to feel more confident that my borders will stay looking full, I will probably feel better about cutting! I’ve just planted out all my dahliae so if the molluscs don’t defeat me I should get some lovely cutting material from them!
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Cutting does get easier, honest! 😉 Hope the s&s keep away from your dahlias – strangely they didn’t seem at all interested in mine this year…
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Sorry, I meant to say how the foliage makes a great foil for your lupins – what varied shades of green they are!
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I love the interesting mix of flowers and foliage….really quite beautiful!
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A lovely vase! And I can confirm what Cathy says…. cutting does get easier. Since participating in her meme my garden has also changed and I grow more flowers for cutting too. 😃
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