If you could see me today you would notice a huge smile. Not only is it the first day of spring- the days are getting noticeably lighter- but it is also my youngest daughter’s birthday.

So for this happy day, I have dashed around the garden picking spring flowers and blossom to fill the house with colour and scent. I always put cherry blossom in every room  for my daughter’s special day. There’s little pots of scented violets and wild primroses on all the windowsills. And for the front door I’ve made a willow kokedama bouquet.

The “ingredients” for the kokedama comprise a willow heart I made last winter, a cut down plastic juice bottle, some moss from the garden and some twine. I spotted this  idea at  Easton Walled Gardens last month. Snowdops wrapped in moss and twine made strikingly beautiful displays. I made a note of how they were put together.

Here’s my ingredients in the potting shed. I used a Robinsons juice bottle cut down to 10cm for a vase and some lime green Nutscene heritage twine. 

I made a nest around the vase with wet moss, and simply wrapped back and forth until the moss was secured. It was much easier than I expected, and only took a few minutes to make. The vase was easily tied to the front of the willow heart. 

The mossy vase was packed with winter- flowering Algerian Iris Unguicularis, hellebore Ashwood hybrids, pulmonaria, comfrey, fogetmenot, Prunus Kojo no Mai and vinca. 

For the dining table posies, delicate Victorian glasses  were filled with  Sissinghurst white pulmonaria, bellis daisies, comfrey, cowparsley, and pink corydalis. 

Ŷ

And lots of glass jars of  pink and white blossom. 

You can never have too much blossom…..

Do you like making flower arrangements for special occasions at home?

 Many thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting this meme. Each week Cathy encourages us to go out into our gardens and find material for In a Vase on Monday. Cathy is celebrating her 5th anniversary of blogging today. She was one of the first people I followed on here, and I’ve really appreciated her helpful support and advice from the start. Finding friends and sharing ideas and information is for me, the best reason for joining in.