Summer ruffles

PEONY, CLEMATIS, ROSE

A tousled summer centrepiece with garden roses and clematis with wispy clusters of lilac and smoky mauve.

JUNE

INGREDIENTS

Rosa ‘Goldfinch’, ‘Buff Beauty’, ‘Julia’ (rose)

Peonia ‘Canary Brilliants’ (Japanese Itoh peony)

Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’ (mullein)

Helianthemum ‘Wisley Pink’ (rock rose)

Hesperis matronalis ‘Dame’s Violet’ (sweet rocket)

Polemonium ‘Kaleidoscope’ (Jacob’s ladder)

Clematis ‘Samaritan Jo’ (clematis)

VASE

Ceramic pedestal bowl (Aesme Studio design)

Kenzan

Small scrunch of chicken wire

NOTES

June is one of the best months for creating soft and ethereal flower arrangements using all the ruffly shapes in bloom now in the garden. I want to make a romantic and shapely centrepiece design in a footed bowl. I choose several blowsy focal flowers which all have interesting nuances in colour and keep these low and close to the opening of the bowl, allowing the smaller, wispier flowers to reach out and up. Julia’s rose is a creamy coffee colour with a glowing honey centre. The intersectional peony - highly fragrant - has a large six-inch face, a froth of stamens and undulating petals that range from cream through pale lemon to coral with streaks of pink. The star-shaped clematis looks almost as though it has been traced with a fine pen along the outline of the silvery petals.

A tip: sear the rock rose and verbascum - they tend to droop once cut.

Full froth

WATER FIGWORT, DAISY, BEDSTRAW, BELLFLOWER

A large pedestal bowl brimming with the abundance of the June garden.

JUNE

INGREDIENTS

Scrophularia auriculata (water figwort)

Leucanthemum vulgare (ox-eye daisy)

Campanula lactiflora ‘Loddon Anna’, ‘Pritchard’s Variety’ & ‘Alba’ (milky bellflower)

Sanguisorba tenuifolia ‘Alba’ (white-flowered burnet)

Galium mollugo (hedge bedstraw)

Gaura ‘Siskiyou Pink’ & ‘Rosyjane’ (Lindheimer's beeblossom)

Echinacea ‘Paradoxa’ & ‘Pallida’ (cone flower)

VASE

Ceramic bowl, approx 30cm diameter (Aesme Studio design)

Kenzan

Chicken wire

NOTES

The tall spire flower with the dark stem is a native weed that we enjoy in the cutting garden - it is water figwort (Scrophularia auriculata) and produces masses of tiny maroon flowers from July to September that provide nectar for butterflies, bees and wasps. Happy in the pond or bog garden it is also able to tolerate periods of drought. The name ‘Auriculata’ refers to the shape of the tiny flowers and translate as ‘shaped like an ear’.

Lilac, peach, rust

LILY, ROSE, COSMOS, etc

A mouth-watering tableau of blooms in a blended ombre of lilac, peach and orange with a few pops of red thrown in for good measure. Yum!

JULY

INGREDIENTS

Rosa ‘Cheshire’ & ‘Cornelia’ (rose)

Lonicera japonica ‘Halliana’ (Japanese honeysuckle)

Lilium ‘Fairy Morning’, ‘Henryi’ & ‘Peppard Gold’ (martagon lily)

Lilium ‘Pink Planet’ (trumpet lily)

Dahlia ‘Wine Eyed Jill’ (dahlia)

Hydrangea paniculata (panicled hydrangea)

Cynara cardunculus (cardoon)

Phlox paniculata ‘Franz Schubert’ (phlox)

Sanguisorba ‘Lilac Squirrel’ (burnet)

Macleaya cordata (plume poppy)

Cosmos ‘Cupcakes’ (cosmos)

Sidalcea ‘Rosaly’ (prairie mallow)

Eschscholtzia (California poppy)

Foeniculum vulgare (fennel)

Crocosmia ‘Hellfire’ (fire lily)

Acidanthera murielae (Abyssinian gladiolus)

Anemone japonica (Japanese anemone)

Salvia ulignosa (bog sage)

Viburnum opulus (guelder rose)

VASE

Vintage Indian brass bud vases

NOTES

A linear display of vessels at varying heights - always fun to make, and especially in July when the garden is at its most bountiful. This can be scaled up - for a large mantelpiece or entry console, for example - or down - for an undulating stream of vessels along a dining table. We love the gleam of old metal by candlelight.

Summer's end

HOLLYHOCK, CINQUEFOIL & FEATHERTOP GRASS

A highly textural display in a beautiful vase from Norfolk, with fruiting stems, fluffy grasses and Alcalthaea spires from the garden.

AUGUST

INGREDIENTS

Rubus (blackberry)

Alcalthaea suffrutescens 'Parkallee' & ‘Parkrondell’

Geranium ‘Walter’s Gift’ (cranesbill)

Potentilla fruiticosa ‘Primrose Beauty’ (shrubby cinquefoil)

Pennisetum villosum (feathertops)

Nandina domestica (sacred bamboo)

Fragaria × ananassa (strawberry)

VASE

Small vase in a tenmoku glaze

NOTES

This is one of our favourite vases, from the Norfolk based pottery ‘Made in Cley’ (shop till you drop!) The glaze is called ‘tenmoku’ and was likely first introduced to the West from Japan by Shoji Hamada when he set up the Leach Pottery with Bernard Leach in 1920s St Ives. The name translates as ‘heaven’s eye’ referring to the Tianmu mountain in China. It was here that Japanese monks first discovered the glaze, taking the recipe back home with them; it is believed to have originated in China during the Song Dynasty where it was used to decorate bowls for use during tea ceremonies. Tenmoku is a reduction fired stoneware glaze containing iron oxide that fires to a high-gloss somewhere between a rich maroon, dark chocolate and almost-black. This vase can look glittery in some lights - a result of the minute iron silicate crystals that form in the glaze during the firing process. I love the ‘breaking points’ where the glaze has thinned to a rust colour over the ridges.

The Alcalthaea are a cross between a hollyhock and a mallow; they have greater rust resistance (allegedly) than a hollyhock and flower right through from mid-summer to the first frost. Very tall stems bear bowl-shaped flowers sprinkled with bronze stamens. We sear them immediately once cut for around 40 seconds in just-boiled water and find that they last extremely well in a vase.