This last week, I scavenged hard around the autumnal edges of both my garden and those of my mum and sister’s, hunting out vase-worthy creatures from amid the late-season fade, seed heads, rust and powdery mildew.

My sister couldn’t believe it when, an hour after leaving her house with a haul, that included pumpkin flowers, bedraggled roses, a branch of lemon tree and hops, I sent her a picture of the resulting big, ramshackle arrangement. She replied with, “and I was thinking my garden had nothing left to offer this season”.

Interesting autumn pickings from my sisters garden including pumpkin flowers (only lasted a night), hops, kowhai and spinich flower.

At the recent Grow Ōtautahi – Christchurch Garden Festival – where I was a Beginner Gardener Ambassador, as well as manning a small tent with my garden-inspired art and recently released book; Petal Power, I was interested to see so many people stopping to ask what the delicate green flowers in one of my arrangements were.

I almost felt smug revealing that they were simply parsley flowers from my unkempt vege patch. One person gasped in despair, remarking that they had just pulled out a huge bed of rampaging, gone-to-seed parsley and hadn’t thought for a second about popping some in a vase. I felt bad for her knowing that they last a record time as a picked flower.

Parsley flower with raspberries, cosmos, hollyhocks and Japanese anemones

While I am hugely inspired by the world of commercial floristry, there are certain creative benefits that arrive with being a home arranger. Being forced to look at all that is growing in your garden as potential pickings, as opposed to only the pristine with long straight stems and perfectly-timed blooms.

As I’ve written before about my inability to even let late-season rose prunings skip their turn in the vase on their way to the green bin, I equally can’t deny the beauty in a big, bold clover leaf in a posy, despite the constant-spreading hell it gives me in my garden.

While blasphemous to hardcore food growers, I will readily sacrifice a long limb of fruiting raspberry cane and runners of strawberries to add some fun and whimsy to a seasonal posy. Sometimes I feel like I only grow leeks for their outlandish spherical blooms and the defeat of my coriander bolting once again is always softened by being able to harvest its delicate white flowers.

A wee spillover of strawberries add whimsey to home arrangements.

Even the rampant clover that tortures me in the garden can be a fun addition to a posy. If you can’t beat’em, join’em.

Even as my dahlias struggle on, I find myself enjoying the weird form of their seedheads so much that I often bring them indoors too. The same can be said for my roving Japanese anemones, their gorgeous smiling blooms drop to reveal the cute, pale-green bobble heads that simply look fantastic, weaving through the tops of a kitchen table bunch. Even spiky tendrils from my potted rosemary is proving a fantastic structural and fragrant addition to arrangements.

In lockdown last year. I found distraction in making little vignettes of autumnal offerings, including short branches of crabapples, pears, acorns and chestnuts. I made sure I carefully trimmed from out-of-the-way areas of the trees and always included some autumn colour – when possible.

My love of fennel as a picking flower is well-documented, but I have found late-season pleasure when its flowers finish and present a beautiful, muted green display of smooth seeds. It is a strangely architectural look for a plant and lasts forever in arrangements. This year, poppy seedheads proved to be more fun in a vase, then their quickly collapsing blooms and nigella seedheads area equally cool to look at, both types drying easily to be used over winter too.

Fennel and poppy seed heads with friends in summer.

But, if I’m honest, this end of the year is made better for me with the imminent arrival of rose hips. There is some kind of magical nostalgia wound up in rose fruit that gets me all whimsical and romantic. I marvel at the huge variety of sizes and colours that emerge, itching to pick them to bring them inside to trigger some seasonal nesting.

There are no assurances that your experimental pickings will all do well in a vase, as reminded by the pumpkin flowers which were done when I woke up the next morning, but the hops are doing incredibly well!

For a short-lived, cheap creative distraction, it’s worth a play.

So next time you are trigger-happy with your secateurs, lower your standards and look a little closer at what your garden might offer you to enjoy for your own visual benefits.

This article was first featured in my Stuff ‘Homed’ gardening column for beginners and The Press on April 8th 2021
All words and images are my own, shot in my garden in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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