I am probably doing the Duchess a great injustice by implying she is a floozy, as I don't know her well enough, but when you are such a lovely shade of deep purply blue that you become the focus of a vase on Monday, then perhaps you need to be big enough to allow people to take liberties with your reputation.
The focus of today's bluesy vase is Callistephus 'Duchess Blue' and she was joined from the cutting beds by Scabious 'Oxford Blue' and Limonium 'Purple Attraction', and from elsewhere by Agastache 'Liquorice Blue', Succisella inflexa and Clematis 'Gypsy Queen'. The succisella didn't appear last year, so I am pleased it has emerged again, and the agastache, grown from seed, was overwintered in the greenhouse and planted out still in its pot for easy lifting later. I have learned from experience that agastache rarely survives outside her, even in a mild winter, so I no longer risk it.
A blue hyacinth vase holds the contents this week, no longer used to grow hyacinths as success with growing them in water was rare, and adding extra blue is a lapis lazuli sphere, believed to open the 'third eye', balance the throat chakra and encourage self-awareness and self-expression. Lapis was used widely to decorate the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, built in 1762 for Catherine, the second wife of Peter the Great, including the walls in certain rooms.
It is not often that I am able to fill a vase with wholly blue(ish) blooms, and it was a pleasure to do so today. Perhaps you could join us with blooms of any colour from your garden - and remember, it doesn't have to be blooms, nor do they have to be in an actual vase. Neither do they have to be arranged - they can be plonked, as mine largely are. If you leave links to and from your post, we can share in the pleasure you will undoubtedly get from your vase or jam jar and its contents.
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