Today I am joining Kathy at ramblinginthegarden for her ‘In a vase on Monday meme’. She has some lovely Helleborus niger looking pristine in little inkwells. It is a challenge to find flowers for a vase at this time of the year because one is reluctant to pick the treasures that are brave enough to show their little faces in January. I normally avoid pink and yellow together but in my vase this is the combination I have because that is what is available.I found that the dark Hellebores are not out yet so that is why they are all pale ones here.
In pink I have Helleborus orientalis, Viburnum bodnantense ‘Pink Dawn’, Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’ and a Hesperantha coccinea ‘Fenland Daybreak’. In yellow there is winter jasmine: Jasminum nudiflorum and the yellow foliage of Choisya ‘Sundance.’ In white there is the Viburnum tinus which I dislike but it is quite useful at this time of the year and the lovely fragrant winter flowering honeysuckle: Lonicera fragrantissima. Also smelling wonderful is Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna. In green there is Helleborus foetidus which seeds all over my garden, but I don’t mind I like green flowers.
Chloris
The Blooming Garden 
Looks like your garden is waking up! Nice fragrant selection! I love all the fragrant Viburnums. I can not wait for my Viburnum carlesii to start blooming. Such a heavenly scent they have!
Viburnum carlesii has the most delicious perfume of all the viburnums I think. Viburnum tinus is the one to avoid. It smells of wet dog when it is wet, but it flowers bravely throughout the winter.
You have a lovely winter selection, like you I don’t like to pick lone blooms for the garden so it isn’t always easy to find something interesting for a vase.
I like your vase of grasses Christina. Yes, when precious things are in bloom in the garden it is a shame to pick them, especially the Hellebores which last for ages in the garden but droop their heads very quickly indoors.
What glorious colours you have found, Chloris – and a real bunchful of blooms too! Your garden must be smelling wonderful too with all those fragrant plants you have. My sarcoccoa and honeysuckle are certainly teasing me with their perfume every time I go outside now, but I found myself peering very closely at my ‘Dawn’ today to check if it was still alive as it is in a pot and was new a year ago – there was the tiniest hint of pink but i don’t think I will be cutting any this year! I am interested to see you have a named variety of the hesperantha – I was bowled over with big clumps of a pink one on Anglesey when we were there in December and have since been given an unnamed pink one by another blogger. Aren’t garden bloggers lovely people! Thanks so much for joining in – I have added a link to this post from your comment on mine, but I am wondering if you know how to add them yourself…
I have mentioned the name of your blog, Kathy,but you are right, I don’t know how to make a link.How do you do it?
I had to ask the first time too, Chloris – all part of the learning curve! In this case, when you are writing the post (or editing afterwards) you highlight where you mention my name (or the name of a company or a blog or whatever) and then look at the row of symbols just above where you are writing your post and click on the symbol that looks a bit like a paperclip. This opens a pop-up that says ‘insert/edit link’ – you then paste or write the URL of the post or blog or website you want to link to – in this case
http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/in-a-vase-on-monday-keeping-it-simple/ – tick the box to open in a new window and then ‘add link’ (simplest way to copy is to highlight and click Ctrl C, then paste using Ctrl V).
To add a link to your post from mine to you would copy the URL of your post – in this case https://thebloominggarden.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/in-a-vase-on-monday/ – and paste it into a comment on my blog. People can then click on these links and go straight to the relevant thing – it’s a great way of sharing things and mentioning blog posts you have found particularly interesting or relevant, but also a good way of giving info about plant nurseries or all sorts of things you might have mentioned on your blog – or referring to past posts of your own too. It’s a great tool, whether you choose to link your vase posts or not, so do challenge yourself and give it a try! Regards, Cathy (with a C!)
Thank you so much for this, Cathy with a C. I did wonder how on earth people did this And now I know. Not difficult once you know how!
Your vase of flowers is wonderful, Chloris! I wish I had more luck with hellebores here – I do have a couple tucked into the bed running outside our living room window but, after nearly 3 years in the ground, they’ve yet to bloom. Still, I wait.
They are taking a long time, are they Helleborus orientalis or niger? I sometimes find Niger a bit shy of flowering. How frustrating for you.Are there no sign of buds this year?
I’m more than just a little bit envious. Beautiful blooms!
Yes it must be difficult for you to have so long to wait before things get going over there.But you have lots of promising buds just waiting to pop.
What a beautiful display. One of the things I love about using hellebores in a vase is that I get to see all the beautiful detail of these charming little flowers.
Hello Sarah. I don’t like picking my Hellebores any more than I like picking Eucomis. They droop their heads very quickly. But you are right they need to be looked at up close to see all the beautiful detail.