Late Summer Seasonal Flowers: Home and Garden

Hello Everyone, welcome to the 

Flower Power Late Summer Mini Blog Hop 

hosted by our sweet friend, 

Cecilia from My Thrift Store Addiction!

We're so glad you're here and hope you'll join us 

for some fun with Late Summer Blooms and Florals.

If you're coming from Amber's lovely garden

at Follow the Yellow Brick Home,

thanks so much for coming by!

Since I was a young person, I've dreamed of having an English Country Cottage flower garden. The wild and whimsical concept of different plantings, colors, and textures appeals to my sense of casual beauty and ease. But... I've not had the time or place to actually put that idea into practice, so I usually end up with container plantings in the summer months. If I've been fortunate, I get to enjoy plants, shrubs and flowers that previous home owners have had to leave behind.

The home we're living in now has two hydrangea bushes that were here when we purchased the house, almost 3 years ago. The larger one has been prolific this year with blooms and growth. I haven't been able to keep up with them all. The blooms started out a creamy white and have changed from white to green, then pink, and now are in fabulous shades of mauve, purple and lavender.

When I was invited to participate in this Hop, I felt a little lacking in the beautiful blooms I would have loved to have shared with you all. But I clipped several blooms from the larger hydrangea bush and made an impromptu arrangement in one of my outside ironstone antique pitchers. It's here on the potting bench on the back porch.

As I said, container plantings are a relatively easy way to bring some fun and color to our yards, porches, as gardens. Geraniums are my go-to container plants and recently I've been combining them with lantana, zinnias, marigolds and million bells. They usually do well if I can keep the squirrels out of the newly planted pots. If they see dirt, they want to dig, so I usually fill the pots pretty tightly. 

I can usually find a few blooms to put together a few little arrangements and tussy mussies throughout the growing season. I especially love using small vintage vessels for the flowers. Below photos were from late May and have now matured and grown to give me some pretty little arrangements.

These next few photos were taken last year in late August as a grouping in one of my vintage white tool totes. A small birdhouse, vintage clay pots with bird seed and leaves makes a fun display with late summer mini zinnias and marigolds.

I love the variety of color with most of the container plants. You can put together flowers with a Spring palette, mid-summer patriotic color, on in to fall shades when they are mixed with leaves, berries and stems.

Since I don't have a lot of live blooms for indoor arrangements, I use faux florals in vintage containers. Having pets AND allergies also makes it easier to just use faux blooms for decor. Since we've moved here this old wooden ice cream bucket has found it's spot here in the Garden Room on the farm table. This time of year I use darker hydrangeas and a variety of sunflowers as a basic arrangement.

another view

Early in the summer I filled this wonderful old wicker basket

with faux mini daisies and stems with mini lemons.

Since the calendar has changed to August I've changed over

to Black Eyed Susans and a variety of Sunflowers.

I have a large metal Italian basket that I painted gray several years ago, that I keep on the Dining Room table. The table and chairs are large and visually heavy so it needs a larger centerpiece to even show up. This basket has a base of faux ivy and hydrangeas that I keep year round. Depending on the season and holiday, other faux flowers and stems are added or subtracted. It makes for an easy changeup for the seasons. This time of year it's all about hydrangeas and sunflowers. Most of my faux flower arrangements are some kind of combination.

When we head closer to Fall I'll add in some fall leaves and berries.

I love using vintage vases and vessels 

for small arrangements of live garden flowers.

This was an arrangement from two years ago in the Entry in early September. I usually keep a vintage print along with the faux flowers that compliment each other on the console. Here, I've mixed white and yellow sunflowers, hydrangeas, and seasonal leaf stems.

Here's a small late summer mini arrangement in an antique crock,

made with faux florals in early fall colors. 

Here's another faux arrangement in an old watering can 

this month that's on the bench in the Garden Room.

Even though I'd love to have a large cutting garden, I try to make the most of a few blooms in smaller vintage vases. And if you can't have "real" flowers then opt for a few mixed faux florals. Silk flowers have come a long way in the last 10 years or so. Sometimes, it's hard to tell, and often I mix real with faux, especially hydrangeas.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a few late summer blooms

 and arrangements from all of us.

If you started somewhere along the list of the Hop,

please check out the other participants that are listed below!

Cecilia from My Thrift Store Addiction

CoCo at the Crowned Goat

Kim at Exquisitely Unremarkable

Kathleen at Our Hopeful Home

Jane at Cottage at the Crossroads

Amber at Follow the Yellow Brick Home

Debra at Common Ground

Thanks so much Cecilia for the fun and beauty in late summer florals, and thanks so much to all of you for coming by to visit here.