I nearly shared a photograph of monstrous Rudbeckia 'Irish Eyes' on Six on Saturday, but had too many images for it to make the cut. It is a variety I have grown from seed for six or seven years or more, but never has it grown so tall - at least 4 feet or 120cms! Not only that, but the blooms have lasted on the plants for a good month with no deadheading required, although one or two are now just on the turn. If any bloom deserved a shout-out in a Vase on Monday it is this rudbeckia and, accordingly, its blooms make up the majority of the contents of today's IAVOM.
They are joined by other seed-sown annual rudbeckia, namely ''Cherry Brandy', 'Marmalade' and 'Sahara', and a single head of Sunflower 'Velvet Queen', my go-to sunflower. Some stems of Irish Eyes had to be cut down from their phenomenally lengthy 28" or 70cm to sit appropriately in the vase, a pleasing diagonally ribbed green glass vase I had forgotten about. I try to avoid buying vases these days as I have so many, but this must have come from the 'tip shop' (a charity shop at our local recycling/waste disposal centre) on a visit earlier this year, when its colour and useful flared shape promoted its potential usefulness. Acting as props are a spent sunflower head and the book that spawned the title, 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini, a worthy read. The title jumped into my head immediately I began cutting the rudbeckia, although 'a thousand' is a slight exaggeration...
The not-quite-a-thousand suns are shining radiantly as I write this, bringing the joys of the garden into the house. You could generate a similar joy by finding material in your own garden to pop into a vase and share with us on IAVOM, leaving the usual links to and from this post.
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