The wind. Storm Imogen, apparently (who comes up with these names?!). It makes me feel crotchety and unsettled when I’m indoors listening to the house making all sorts of alarming noises but quite giddy and exhilarated when I’m outdoors. After a thoroughly good stomp through the fields this morning with a good friend and our dogs I returned home feeling invigorated and ready to get on with the day. I wasn’t confident that I’d find anything much for a Monday vase but was delighted to find this beautiful hellebore by the steps at the bottom of the garden, together with the purple-blue Vinca I’ve used before, a few sprigs of stalwart ivy and one of honeysuckle.
Thanks to snowdrop enthusiasts Cathy at Rambling in the Garden and Chloris at The Blooming Garden I think we’ve narrowed down the mystery snowdrop shown in my previous post to a hybrid – Galanthus atkinsini – but, as they say, snowdrop identification is a very tricky business. It might be something else. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful. The two large plants are precariously growing out of a bank by the front steps and were being roughed up by the wind, so I snipped the remaining three flowers and brought them indoors to enjoy close up.
Thank you to Cathy for hosting In a Vase on Monday. It is a welcome prompt to get out into the garden and notice what’s growing, what’s blooming and to bring some of the beauty indoors. Do visit her blog to see her vase and links to many others around the world.
acoastalplot 
Beautiful, as always, and very cheering. We’ve had 40-mph winds here all night, and the same expected all day today – and it makes me feel edgy. The winter storm in the U.S. last week was named Kayla, same as our oldest. She was pretty pleased, saying her lifelong goal of wreaking havoc all over the nation had finally come true. 😊 But why we suddenly need names for winter weather is a mystery.
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Thanks Amy. I like the sound of your daughter.
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Snowing here so I am just looking at the garden and not getting out into it. Love your Hellebore arrangement and that vase is a killer. Terrific shape and color.
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Thank you Linda. We’ve had no snow here for three years, just lots of rain and wind…
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I love the way you have caught the light…and highlighted the beauty of the blooms. I used to live in the tropics and all the cyclones had names…then I came to live in England, where my mother came from, and for years we hardly had any bad weather…now it seems that storms are almost the norm.
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Thank you Noelle. Yes, it does seem that there are more and more storms.
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Love your two vases, colour, texture everything! I feel battered by the wind and very unsettled by it, especially knowing all these storms are most likely due to climate change, scary, thank goodness for our nice warm houses.
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Thank you 🙂 And, yes, thank goodness we can shelter from these storms.
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I adore those snowdrops but the star is the pink vase with the hellebores!
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Don’t you just love these delicate pale pink hellebore colours? Like new born babies somehow… What a gorgeous pink stripey vase you have put them in – and spared your ‘special’ snowdrops too! I do think its leaves are possibly too wide for G atkinsii, but Chloris knows far more than I ever will…! 😉
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Whatever it is, I love it 🙂
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I’m proving to be grumpy about the naming of storms. It’s been blowing a hoolie here today too and I spent the afternoon out in it doing a farmland survey. I didn’t much enjoy it although I take your point about exhilaration. Loved the flowers, especially the soft, delicate blush of the hellebore and of course the snowdrop. There are banks of them here on the lanes now :o) XX
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I’m not sure I’d find trying to work while out in that wind terribly enjoyable either. It’s much calmer today although there’s a steady rain making even more mud.
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Maybe it’s because I’ve been sewing lately, but the beautiful pillows in the background caught my eyes!
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Ah, thank you. I can’t take any credit for them (other than spotting them in a shop and buying them a few years ago!).
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That’s a good idea bringing in the snowdrops to enjoy rather than leaving them to the effect of the wind! Our walk on the beach yesterday was very invigorating too, but when we reached home we felt we had been blown apart! The greenhouse is in jeopardy today ,oh for some calmer weather! Sarah x
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Hope your greenhouse survived Sarah. It was a mighty storm, wasn’t it?! Much calmer today here (although heavy rain); hope it is where you are too.
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The snowdrops are especially beautiful! I know what you mean about the wind, today when I was out for a walk although I was nearly blown over I didn’t mind, but inside I hate listening to the wind! xx
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What ever the snowdrop is called it is exquisite. I think Vinca is a very underrated plant.
I hope you have survived Imogen ok.
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Thank you Brian. Yes, the house is still standing! That was the noisiest storm so far this winter.
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Love the vases and the way they pick up the colors of the flowers. Vinca must grow everywhere!
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Your vases are beautiful. I love the snowdrop especially; I was just thinking that I need to find time to visit the local botanic garden because their snowdrops should be blooming by now. Maybe one morning this week while my children are in school.
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Ooh, yes, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe a coffee out too. Can I come? 🙂
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It’s a lovely hellebore and an equally wonderful snowdrop! We’re experiencing high winds too but, sadly, I can’t say they leave me feeling exhilarated – our Santa Ana winds (aka “devil winds”) are so dry they leave your skin itching and your nose twitching (to sense any fire danger).
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Dry winds are not great for the skin are they. Hope you get through it without any fires. It’s raining heavily here today and thankfully the wind has dropped.
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Beautiful flowers! I’m the other way round. Happy indoors when it’s howling a gale but very crabby outside when I’m walking in windy conditions. Here’s hoping for a calmer day. Barbara X
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Thanks Barbara. Yes, much calmer today. Hope it is where you are.
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Brave you going out in all that fearful storm yesterday. Imogen having the very worst sort of tantrum. Thank goodness for a bit of a lull at the moment. I love your arrangements, they sum up what is the very best thing about this time of the year in the garden- hellebores and snowdrops. I will send you a few different snowdrops later when they die down. I am nervous about digging up clumps when they are in full leaf.
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That’s so kind of you, thank you x
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Lovely! It must have been amazing watching the storm at sea from the safety of your home.
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It was rather dramatic.
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Snowdrops. Hellebores, Vinca – excellent arrangement of early spring flowers. Nice color combination, too.
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What pretty arrangements, the pink colour of the vase really picks up the blush pink of the hellibore. I don’t mind the storms too much, they remind me of winters in the north of Scotland, and the Western Isles, where the wind was relentless. Not that I liked it much at the time, but I do like being indoors when it is stormy outside X
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I love your pink hellebore – you picked the right colour vase to highlight it too, Sam. We had really strong winds and storm here too, but I think it had a different name here!
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