By Diana Saufley

For those who are new to Houston, I can assure you that we normally don’t have outdoor temperatures this high, for this long.  Having endured a very cold winter, we were blessed with a beautiful spring that we have not seen in years.  However, this past winter’s freeze killed some native plants in my yard.  Now with the drought, I again have plants that are as dry as a leaf in winter.

So, many of us are hiding from the heat in our homes.   I miss the plethora of roses and flowering plants that I usually have to snip and bring into my house for some color, bringing the outdoors in.  It may seem that the weeds are the only thing prospering right now, but there are plants that tolerate high temperatures, beautiful and make unique indoor floral arrangements.

To make a simple arrangement from what you have in your yard:

1. Go through your yard and look for plants mixed together to make arrangement with various textures and color hues, even if just a variety of greenery.
2. Once you have identified some plants with interesting texture, color, shapes and hues, snip them in long enough stalks to trim to the size of your container.
3. Choose a container that has or you can add a floral “frog” to the top of a container.  One of my Willow House vases came with a frog and I also recently bought one at an antique store.  They have holes across the top to insert flowers and hold the flowers in a nice arrangement, leaving no guessing on your part.
4. Plan to place all plants the same height or make the center most clippings taller and the outer most clippings shorter. 
5. Fill in, in a staggered fashion some leafy plants like coleus that comes in many colors and variegated species. My lavender is growing just fine in this heat and is a silvery green, which adds not only a variance from the usual green color of many plants, but also has a wonderful fragrance.
6. If you want to have roses or some other plant that just will not grow in this heat, look at your local grocery store to fill in with the clippings from your yard.  Variety in color, texture, shape and height will add some color and bring the outside to your abode. 

Don’t let this heat wilt your spirits!  Go get some color from those things that are prospering in this heat and bring them inside to give them and you a cool reprieve.