For a change it wasn't raining today. Although the plan was to brave the January (not so) cold, I was glad that the weather did its part to motivate me as well. So on a beautiful sunny Winter's day, I set out to complete the first task of my new challenge. 

My 2014 challenge is to put a bunch of homegrown flowers (or the like) in the house every week. I have given myself a budget of £6 a week, which is generous if you look at £3 for a bunch of carnations at Tesco's, but totally insufficient if you want to buy a David Austin bouquet which only start at £49.95 (and I have been lucky enough to receive one from a dear friend!). 

So £6/week minus 5 weeks of holiday takes me to £282 for the whole year. I have of course long been interested in growing my own flowers. I have bought a lot of plants for our garden with the idea of cutting some branches for the house. I have grown quite a few from seeds and some have been gifts like this David Austin rose "Fellowship" with its absolutely perfect form.

I specifically put three Queen of Sweden roses on the allotment for cut flowers, so I feel I need to deduct the costs of those, as well as £100 for everything else that is already in the garden. This leaves me with £138.50, of which, I have decided, I should roughly spend 75% on perennials, so in coming years it will further reduce costs as well as time spend on sowing and propagating. 

I have no illusion that I will be able to get myself this bunch of flowers every week without some additional tricks and cheats. As vegetables are often ready in the same week, I have no doubt that this is the same for the annual flowers that I am going to grow, and then I am not even talking about the upcoming difficult Winter and early Spring months. So another rule is that I am allowed to pick from the wild and, secondly, I can pick from friends (and stranger's) gardens, as long as I give them something in return. 

So as for this week's project, I thought a table piece would be nice, using the willow that I planted as a fedge (indeed, that's in between a fence and a hedge) dividing the vegetable garden with what we grandiosely call "The Orchard". 

Making a wreath was pretty simple. I used around 15 twigs of willow that were 4 to 5 feet long. The first one I twisted around itself and then the next ones around the first one, building up the wreath as I added more twigs. Getting a round shape looked a bit tricky at the start, but the more twigs I added the easier it became to adjust it, so it looked like a circle.  If you want to do the same, but don't have any willow in your garden, use any wild twig that is flexible enough to bend.  

To finish the wreath I used red crab apples (Malus Red Sentinel) and rose hips for colour and hydrangea for "flowers" and this is the end result.

Now what remains is clearing up the dining area, so it can actually be seen and noticed. 

I'll tell you next week if the cats left it alone. Till then!