Budget Blooms

 This large pitcher on my mantel calls for a big bundle of flowers, but what do you do when you're not in the mood to shell out twelve bucks for not-so-pretty flowers at the supermarket? 

Well, I'll tell ya what I did. This very large shrub in the front needed some trimming and it was blooming. So I thought, hey, why not fill up that big pitcher with a few branches? This shrub (I feel like I knew what it was at one time, but I've since forgotten) only blooms for a week or two, so I can't rely on it to give me a season's worth of flowers. But for the next few days, I think they'll do me just fine.

I wasn't sure if I should use water or not, but the answer came quickly. They definitely need to be placed in water. They went from sad and saggy to pretty and perky in a matter of minutes once I filled up the pitcher with water. 

There's still not a ton of stuff blooming in my garden. And it's official, the three petite white butterfly bushes are not coming back. Bummer. I was so looking forward to filling up tons of vases with those big, fluffy flowers. Word on the street is that last winter in Wisconsin was rough on a lot of butterfly bushes. 

I think my blooming branches will keep for a few more days. Then I'll have to come up with another plan for filling it on the cheap until the garden really kicks in. I actually tried gluing little pieces of cotton onto sticks I collected in the back. I was trying to make them look like pussy willow. I just ended up with a big mess that looked like cotton balls glued to sticks. Maybe I'll give it one more try.