ELDER, CRABAPPLE, HYDRANGEA
A textural arrangement layered with turning elder leaves, fluffy clematis seedheads and the last of the honeysuckle, roses and hydrangea.
SEPTEMBER
INGREDIENTS
Sambucus nigra (elder)
Clematis vitalba (traveller’s joy)
Hydrangea (panicled hydrangea)
Rosa ‘For Your Eyes Only’ & ‘Orienta Magnolia’ (rose)
Kolkwitzia amabilis (beauty bush)
Ribes sanguineum (flowering currant)
Malus (crab apple)
Cydonia oblonga (quince)
VaSE
Low stoneware dish
Kenzan
Cap of chicken wire
NOTES
Clematis vitalba is a wild clematis that grows like mad throughout the hedgerows and countryside surrounding our cutting garden in Hampshire. It is so vigorous that in some countries it is considered an invasive species. We find it an incredibly useful ingredient all year round - when it’s in bud and then smothered in faintly fragrant cream flowers from midsummer on. By September the flowers are going to seed with long, gold, silky seedheads. Later in the autumn these become fluffy and turn grey-white which is how it earned the nickname ‘old man’s beard’.
The beautiful quince fruit is from a small tree in my London garden that each year reliably yields a harvest of exactly three fruits.