In a Vase, on Monday – Strawflowers

Chris Mousseau

Strawflowers (Xerochrysum bracteatum) have many attributes, one being how incredibly photogenic they are. If you’re reading this on a device that shows the featured photo (I’ve found that this WordPress design template sometimes doesn’t show an entire post on some mobile devices), don’t you think the three flowers look like an old oil painting? Nothing to do with me or the camera, it’s all about the flowers and the morning light.

Every Monday Cathy at Rambling In The Garden encourages us to share a vase highlighting what is growing in our gardens. It’s been a dry summer here, as in many places, yet with no supplemental watering these strawflowers still grew and produced lovely, colourful blooms in my kitchen garden. They’ll continue to flower until a hard frost in October. I snipped a few to bring inside on Friday.

Have a great week everyone!

24 Comments

  1. The first two photos especially do look rather like still-life paintings; they’re beautiful. Your choice of vase is perfect. It suits the nature of the flowers, which always convey a feeling of a grandmother’s garden to me: like zinnias and bachelor buttons.

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  2. The colours of these strawflowers are so rich, and given your description of the growing conditions, a great recommendation to try in my garden next year. Many thanks Chris and have a great week.

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  3. Yes, they certainly do look like a beautiful, old still life masterpiece! Do straw flowers need special soil, or just full sun?

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  4. I agree about the picture, Chris – it’s the colours that do it 👍 Helichrysum (which I assume are just another name for Xerochrysum) are one of my musts in the cutting beds every year, although mine haven’t actually done very well this year. Have you punched holes in the lid of a ‘Kilner jar’? If so, what a great idea for supporting stems!

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  5. Oh! This looks to be more Californian than Eastern Canadian. Well, at least ‘locally’ Californian. I likely already mentioned that strawflower was the most common of the remaining cut flower crops around my Pa’s home in Montara. I know that they are more popular in other regions than they are here, but they still remind me of Montara. Canning jars were very common in kitchens of the Santa Clara Valley when I was a kid because there were still so many abandoned stone fruit orchards around the region. We all grew up with canned apricots, peaches, nectarines, prunes and even a few squishy plums from orchards, as well as fruits that grew in home gardens.

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  6. The color of the flowers are very rich. I fell for strawflowers last year but neglected to sow seeds this year; however, I just picked up a small plant, which I hope will survive the heatwave coming this week here to bloom as summer’s end approaches.

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  10. Oh, I am so jealous, but in a nice way of your strawflowers. This year the beetles of all kinds have been terrible, and the strawflowers don’t have a chance. Yours are spectacular!

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