In a a Vase, on Monday – Leapin’ Lupins!

Chris Mousseau

Every Monday, Cathy at Rambling In The Garden encourages us to share a vase highlighting what’s growing in our gardens. For the second week in a row, lilacs are in full, glorious bloom in my part of southeast Ontario, and I DID have a large vase full of them for a while on the dining room table. Photos; however, will have to wait, I’m thinking for a throwback sometime when it’s cold and grey, like November, because it’s now the end of May, and that means lupins (Lupine sp)and Iris are starting to look even more spectacular.

I have loads of hybrid lupins in my garden; they seem to love the heavy clay and can tolerate our dry summers. Surprisingly, the same can be said for Iris, even Siberian Iris. I love both the traditional dark blue varieties as well as the pale blue, nearly white ones.

I have two monitors – one on my laptop and a separate, stand alone one, and the colour is quite different on each. So I’m not sure if you’re seeing the vibrant, saturated colour that I see on my monitor, or the more muted, even dull colours I see on my laptop… These photos have not been edited (except for size) – so if you think the colour is super-saturated, that’s exactly what I was seeing in the garden yesterday morning when cutting these flowers. I added a Red Osier Dogwood branch to the arrangement, as well as a pure white, medium bearded Iris.

I love the details in each of these flowers, and am especially amazed by the geometry in the lupin buds, as they emerge on the flower stalk.

Have a great week everyone!

23 Comments

  2. A beautiful arrangement, Chris. The pale iris is particularly lovely. I also noted the Fibonacci sequence in the lupine head… amazing the patterns of nature.

  3. Gorgeous arrangement. With colours like those, you’ve changed my mind about iris. I might just have to plant some!

  4. Such a good collection of flower types and rich range of colors. The lupines are wonderful. I planted a huge number of perennial lupines in December, having never grown them before. They are scattered throughout the garden and have leaves but are so slow! I do hope to see a few. Your hybrids are an inspiration and I love the irises of course.

    1. Thanks! I find some lupins will bloom the same year they’re planted, some wait s year…I’m not expecting any flowers this year from the ones that just germinated this spring.

  5. I noticed the pattern too – nature at her best! It’s intriguing to compare the differences in colour on two monitors – I think I might be getting the muted colours on my laptop here! Your leapin’ lupins make effective partners for your irises – thanks for sharing

    1. 😁😁😁 I may need a new laptop – although it’s only about 10 years old, I guess it’s considered to be ready for the laptop hospice.

  6. I never read ‘lupine’ without thinking of our bluebonnets, but these are fully as attractive. The colors are so rich and varied. I think that’s why the second photo’s my favorite; the combination of colors seems just right to me.

    1. I also love these hybrids – our native lupines are also just blue, and native only in western Canada, where they apparently prefer sandy, well drained soil.

  7. Just beautiful….two of my favorite flowers-lupines and irises! In my old garden I had a meadow full of native lupines.

  8. Oh, such yummy rhododendron like colors for those lupines. You know, I have never grown any of those sorts. I grow only the common native sort, which are exclusively blue. Yellow lupines are wild here, but I have never worked with them.

    1. You’re right – they do have rhodo like colours! I can’t remember seeing a yellow Lupine here, nor white, for that matter, although I do have some blue and white ones every year.

      1. The yellow sorts here are at least two species of bush lupine. No one plants them, since they are combustible as they dry. They are pretty though.

  9. Lovely colours Chris, and I agree about the detail on the lupins. The iris markings also fascinate me and I love that pale one. 😃

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