I have broken with convention. I am not talking about writing on Tuesday instead of Friday as that is because I was away for a few days. No, I have broken with convention because I have used an even number of tulips in my arrangement today. I had six beautiful dark purple tulips and when I went to cut them this morning I decided to cut them all six, thinking that I would probably discard one. But then there wasn't any reason not to use that last one, so I have. And tell, me do you think I shouldn't have?

Of course you could argue that I have used five plus the one in the middle, but I think that is fudging the issue a bit. 

The other convention is of course that most flowers in a bouquet are the same height. I could have left the Helleborus foetidus (also known as stinking hellebore, dungwort and bear's foot) on its stem as I only cut one main stem this morning. However, I felt that in this way both tulips and hellebores are complimenting each other as well as allowing each to feature their own beauty. I love the purple fringe on the hellebore's flowers and its green colour is reflected in the tulip buds.

This morning I also cut the first rose, a lovely specimen of Golden Celebration. It is apparently tea-scented, but it always reminds me of lemon with honey.  It didn't have a long stem, so I combined it in a posy with a random calendula and the first flower of Gerbera jamesonii which still needs to open up. I'm very pleased that the plants that I sowed last summer have come through the winter and I hope to pick lots of flowers this summer.