A few weeks ago, I spotted two distinctive vessels at my favourite vintage shop – @wildoakvintage – The Wild Oak. One is a Made in Japan ceramic beauty with a perfectly round and perfectly sized opening for medium length stems and medium sized blooms. It’s also good, I discovered, for a small handful of dried annual poppy stems/seedheads, joined by a single dried stem/seedhead of Allium Lucy Ball, joined by five not dried stems/seedheads from Penstemon digitalis.
The second vessel I found is an ink bottle made for Dalley’ Ink in the Hamilton Glass Factory in Hamilton, Ontario in the mid to late 1800’s. I took and fancied up this photo with my phone camera. I love the triangle shape and how the colour is going a bit weird with age. It’s perfect for some short-stemmed Calendula and Sedum/Hylotelephium sprigs.
Thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting IAVOM and giving gardeners around the world an opportunity to share some cut flowers (usually still in living colour…) from their garden. Have a great week everyone!


What great finds, Chris. You’ve filled them to great advantage.
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Thanks! I officially have too many vases…😄
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That may be the most striking contrast between bouquet and vase I’ve ever seen. I do like the dried collection, and I especially like the ink bottle. The vintage look of the photo suits the bottle and the arrangement perfectly.
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Thanks Linda – happy I spotted the ink bottle…
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You’ve discovered some wonderful vases at that store & filling them with your yarden finds must have been enjoyable.
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Ha! Yes, Alice…very enjoyable!
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That is nice how you made that last picture of the second vase look like an old photograph. Does anyone take photographs anymore?
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We were certainly on a similar wavelength Chris, as I started looking at other slower stems too, and if I hadn’t cut back veronicastrum stems they would have gone in the mixing pot too. Inkwells are great for teeny vases like this, and your photoshop skills add another dimension
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Nice finds all around – vases, flowers and dried seedheads.
https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/
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Vintage shops are so fun, a bit like a scavenger hunt. We have found cool things locally from old dumps (everyone threw things ‘over the bank’ until towns created town dumps and later ‘transfer’ stations). I have an old inkwell, too, that sits on my kitchen windowsill, perfect for small flowers.
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Very nice. I like the dried goodies. I used to haunt estate sales but had to stop! My estate was getting too big.
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Those dried stems really glow and look lovely in your new vase. And the ink bottle was a great find too – nice to have something with a history. And it will be useful for short-stemmed things, especially in winter and spring. 😃
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The vases are wonderful, as are the elements within. I always enjoy dried arrangements–it’s fun to be creative with the dried elements. Very nice!
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Oh, I love the seed pods – and they’ll last longer than flowers!
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They’re great eh?!
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