In a Vase on Monday

Wildflower Seeds

Oh, Welcome Happy Spring! After our snow dump of 15 inches this weekend and now 60 degrees of sunshine today, Spring flowers are erupting everywhere. Cutting a few flowering branches to bring indoors is always a favorite Spring thing to do, but this week I am inspired by UK garden blogger Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who has inspired many across the internet with her habit of gathering natural materials from outdoors for a vase in her home every Monday.

“In a Vase on Monday” fits in well with what I call the spiritual practices of gardening. It’s another way Nature entices us to slow down and notice what wonders are going on around us. In the scurry of the busy lives of getting to work or school or the distraction of worrying about the week, we can get disconnected with nature. A ritual like a Monday vase helps you practice noticing. Sort of mindfulness before mindfulness was the in thing. If your Mondays are too hectic you can prepare your vase on Sunday. What I find is that once you start a practice like this, you’ll start noticing good candidates for your Monday vase all week. It also helps me get in that needed pruning and garden work on Saturday…just so I can have more material for the Monday vase.

Take a quick walk in your yard (or neighborhood) to gather what might be in bloom. Here’s what I have to work with today:

Plum branches, little grape hyacinths, wild violets, daffodils, forsythia, some early pussy willows, catkins from a birch, euonymous branches.

Here are some pictures this week from people who practice this habit in March of “In a Vase on Monday!” Be inspired.

https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/category/gardens/in-a-vase-on-monday/
https://pbmgarden.wordpress.com/tag/flower-arranging/
http://krispgarden.blogspot.com/2015/04/in-vase-on-monday-spring-splendor.html