The Garden Appreciation Society Week 19 -- Challenge yourself and link up!

I realized a funny thing while taking pictures of this week's Garden Appreciation Society bouquet: I enjoy the bouquets that are harder to come by more than the ones that I made when the garden was in full flush. There's something about the challenge that makes me appreciate that bouquet even more. Or maybe it's just that it forces me to get creative.

In any case, I managed to come up with a relatively simple bouquet that is not only striking but somehow extremely seasonally appropriate. That dark purple, almost black kale definitely says Halloween to me.

The funny thing is that I don't even like the color purple. I actually kind of detest it. But I think this bouquet comes together all in the texture. The large flowers of the Monkshood is such a nice contrast to the frilly kale. I haven't had a lot of luck getting the kale to last long in bouquets, but even if it's only perky for two days, this bouquet is well worth it, especially since there's not enjoying the outdoors these days with it getting dark about half an hour after I get home in the evening.

I know you probably don't have a ton of flowers growing in your garden right now if you're in a northern part of the country, but I challenge you to come up with something to appreciate your garden in a new way this week. I'd love to see what you come up with.

* I feel compelled to edit this post to add a small disclaimer. My mom just told me that Monkshood is incredibly toxic, which is news to me. My dogs don't really go around eating plants but my cat loves to attack bouquets in the house, so I'm probably going to put it somewhere where Desdemona can't reach it when I get home tonight just to be on the safe side. There are a ton of plants out there that are toxic in varying degrees, but this one sounds like a biggie.

And if you'd like to take a little walk down memory lane, here are the previous weeks of The Garden Appreciation Society.

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9
• Week 10
• Week 11
• Week 12
• Week 13
• Week 14
• Week 15
• Week 16
• Week 17
• Week 18