In a Vase, on Monday – Thanksgiving

Chris Mousseau

It’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada, about a month earlier than in the U.S. because, you know, it’s generally colder here and harvests are mostly all in. Traditionally, it’s a day for turkey dinners with multiple veggie side dishes topped off with pumpkin pie, enjoyed with family and friends around a table dotted with multiple vases of the final flowers of the year. I’m fortunate enough to continue the tradition this year, and to be able to join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to share my Thanksgiving vases.

Nights have been chilly recently, and I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up one morning soon to discover a layer of frost covering the outside world. That was my excuse for filling five vases with flowers for this weekend’s Thanksgiving table:

Included is a pair of windowsill vases; this little Made in Japan urn holding nasturtiums and, in an old perfume or ink bottle, a few short stemmed dahlias plus final Agastache and Xerochrysum blooms.

I’m using my top of the vase floral frog for the first time this year to hold the final fully formed Verbena bonariensis flowers…

…and I cut enough dahlias to fill this short blue glazed ceramic vase…it has a large chip on the rim – a great reason to push all the flowers to one side and place the vase against a wall. As you can see, these are mostly a semi-cactus variety; I was initially indifferent to the colour but its grown on me so I may dig up the tubers and store for next year, along with the white Arctica and the humongous Winn’s Desert Sunrise – its final flower is just starting to open but I thought it looked interesting…

The fifth vase is the one I started out to put together. Zinnias don’t really like cold nights; the flowers still blooming are mostly stunted, splotched and discoloured but I did find a few for this ceramic jug. They’re joined by harbingers of winter vases – seedheads of bronze fennel and Agastache, plus a few lovely but very heavy seed pods of Lablab purpurea – Hyacinth bean vine. I love the purple and they have really long stems but the seed pod’s weight makes them challenging for a vase.

Have a great week everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving!

27 Comments

  2. Happy …Canadian… Thanksgiving…Enjoy! Turkey, sides & Pie! The green vase w/ frog looks really nice w/ the Verbena bonariensises. The Hyacinth bean pods would look attractive scattered around the vases.

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    2. Five vases – what a treat for us and for the guests at your meal…how many guests did you have? You have found such an interesting range of blooms to put in the vases too – as you say, frosts could cut things down in one swipe

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  6. I would rather have an earlier Thanksgiving but that will never happen here in the US. Beautiful vases of such rich variety.

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  7. Glad you can share a wonderful meal and treat everyone to these beautiful arrangements. It’s so welcoming to fill the house with flowers and your are lovely. The reddish cactus dahlias are real standouts.

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  8. Happy Thanksgiving. Even though many of us aren’t Canadian, we still give thanks for your beautiful vases and flowers. These are especially nice: a fitting end to the season of bloom.

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  10. A great collection of flowers Chris, and what a great excuse to pick lots. The smaller vases are ideal for putting on a table. Hope you had a wonderful celebratory meal. And I hope the frost will stay at bay a little longer for you. 😃

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  11. Arctica is (perhaps too predictably) one of my favorites, but that other dahlia to the lower left in the first picture is exquisite! They look very different in subsequent pictures.

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    1. Thanks Tony! I’ll be digging up and overwintering Arctica (successfully, I hope) this weekend, I think. (Warmer nights are forecast for the coming few weeks, but at the moment it’s just above freezing outside…) These last days of the season are really producing a lot of blooms though, as if the plant knows it has to procreate quickly or not at all….

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  12. Happy Thanksgiving, Chris! The fare sounds amazingly similar to US. I was just looking for a pie pumpkin to bake. Your vases definitely celebrate a bounteous garden harvest. I think my favorite is the Verbena b.

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    1. Thanks! The Verbena did really well this year, sprouting up in mini forests here and there. Although powdery mildew didn’t appear until late in the season this year it’s still a bit disconcerting.

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