In a Vase on Monday: the Emperor and his Mystical New Clothes

No prizes for guessing what some of the contents of today’s vase will be – blooms from my gifted rescue plant, Salvia ‘Mystic Spires’! With so many blooms and autumn closing in around the garden, it is not surprising I chose to grab them while I could. Having already taken some with me to the voluntary work I do, I added them to the remains of the previous posy I had taken there, stems of Chrysanthemum ‘Emperor of China’. They made a surprisingly pleasing combination, so I decided to replicate this at home, adding foliage of Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’ and stems of Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’. My cornus, unlike those of Cathy at Words and Herbs in Bavaria, still retain their foliage, so I snipped all the leaves from the stems apart from the topmost pair.

The vase is a heavy studio pottery vase purchased from a car boot sale on the Isle of Wight, chosen today for its slightly autumnal appearance. There is hint of magic and mystique around some of today’s elements, with mystical spires, dragons and colour-changing midwinter fires, so I have added a quartz crystal sphere as a prop – perhaps the Emperor will be able to look into the future and tell us what he sees… The sphere stands on a curious beach find from Skegness, two oyster shells apparently fused together.

Next Monday sees the 10th anniversary of In a Vase on Monday, and once again I will throw down an anniversary challenge for contributors – when is a vase not a vase? We have had a similar challenge before, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to pop your contribution into something that isn’t actually a vase – the wackier the better! You can of course do this any week, but let’s all try to really think out of the box (in the box perhaps?!) for this one – and perhaps I will even