Wildflowers in Cobalt Blue

The columbine returns every spring in lovely colors — deep pink, lavender, indigo, violet — spilling down the hillside in front of the house. I’ve never planted or tended it, yet every May it arrives in drifts of pink, purple, and blue, as though it has always belonged here. Columbine has always felt slightly enchanted to me: delicate-looking, but perfectly at home on a mountainside, holding its own among the dandelions, vetch, and day lily shoots. This year I gathered a handful of mountain ragwort too, all gold flare and sunshine, and tucked it into a little cobalt blue log cabin vase my friend Judy gave me years ago. Some of the best household things arrive through friendship rather than shopping. Columbine and ragwort bouquet The vase is a reproduction of an 1883 Central Glass Company pattern, which somehow feels exactly right for Appalachian wildflowers — practical, beautiful, storied, and meant to be used. Every spring it seems to ask for fresh flowers again. The post Wildflowers…