Brilliant as usual, Michelle. So very brilliant, in fact. I'm wary of proscriptions of adjectives, adverbs, or other constructions. They are useful as exercises, as you use them, but crippling as rules.

Your sample paragraph is descriptive. Why wouldn't adjectives abound? Lilies and roses come in varieties, so speckled and pale pink convey detail; glass without modifier would be assumed clear, I think, so pale blue is clarification. For the non-Linnaean among us, tiger-striped saves a Google search.

Had your paragraph been focused on an action, say, a woman throwing your vase at a faithless man, those adjectives would have cluttered things right up: "Ellen hurled the vase at Harold, and the gorgeous speckled lilies, yellow snapdragons, mute green eucalyptus and tiger-striped alstroemeria mingled with the pale blue glass with a gold rim on the floor." As it is, however, I think we need the information that the glass is pale blue, that the lilies are speckled and the roses pink. If you want to cut the paleness and muteness, I will not argue for them.

I'm fond of gorgeous in your first version, because that provides different information. That tells me that this vase delights you in some way. I don't think your observation shows how you feel. Gorgeous is a slip of delight into your observation. Gorgeous is also egregiously out of place in my adapted lovers' fight for that reason. Sad or faded would do that work. (Milton intermission: I'm reminded of the lines when Adam first sees Eve after she's eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree:

From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve

Down dropped, and all the faded roses shed. PL 9.892-893)

Thank you for such a meditation on good writing! You are an inspiration.