I woke up on Monday and it was as though every flowering tree in the neighborhood got the memo.
It is spring! A very, very dry, warm spring. I have begun to water the garden, praying for rain.
At the Farmer's Market I bought strawberries (already?) Strawberries as sweet as honey (variety, Monterey).
The ethereal quality of early spring blossoms is so particular. It makes my heart hurt with their beauty. A soft breeze blows them away. White, iridescent blooms on a neighbors plum tree make a beautiful sight from our living room window. A few days- a week and they are dried and done.
This little tree has a certain following. In a few months a large family/tribe of blonde haired children and adult women will come to check on the tree which overhangs the street. They flit about in excitement checking on the ripening small golden plums. It is not their tree, not their yard. I don't know where they live. They are like the seasonal migration of beautiful cedar wax wing birds, descending to ravage a bush and then darting away. But this tribe seems more bold than shy cedar wax wings, confident of their ownership of the oncoming plum bounty.
We who live a short distance away could easily get there first. I guess we are just not enamored with those plums. After 7 or so years, it really feels like "their" tree. And they are clearly so delighted, it's a joy to watch them (sneakily) from the window. The
owner is never around when the great harvest takes place. I don't know whether they have an arrangement
with him, or is he just relieved not to have to pick up the pulpy,
overripe mess they leave. A mystery.
And this year I can only hope that all of them will return.
I am still smiling when I think of all of you!
Sometimes there is group magic; making for a generous, adventurous spirit that lifts everyone up.
These newcomers made beautiful pieces and we all had a great time! Here is their work below.
I wasn't exactly in the mood for romance and a traditional Valentine palette this year. The day after V Day I took off for my home town of Baltimore to help my little brother after a minor surgery. The situation was compounded by the fact that his wife has ALS and now has limited mobility. She needed to go into a skilled care facility to be taken care of so we could take care of him. Their love is strong and I am praying for the best possible outcome.
I am increasingly interested in working with flowers in a way that digs a little deeper in meaning and mood.
So I offer a Blue Valentine, dedicated to my brother and his wife and their journey.
A Tale of accidental Cause and Effect:
The coyote appeared in our neighborhood two years ago during the late spring. He waltzed past our house every day, morning and evening for a few months. Then he vanished. Our young cat, Aurora Bell met him briefly during his occupation. Whew- I was lucky enough to get her away. His appearance changed her life -and mine. Now she is a mostly an indoor cat who goes on daily walks with me.
Walking this cat is somewhat like walking a dog, except in miniature. There is a smaller area of interest to explore- the garden and approximately half a block in any direction of the house. It involves similar interests: sitting, walking, sniffing, playing, flopping down and rolling around, with sudden bolts due to perceived danger, and maybe a little tree climbing thrown in.
The main difference is that the pace is often laboriously slow (until it's not), which gives me a very generous amount of time to look at every plant, every tree, every rock, every weed in the garden.
Mostly I appreciate this little routine that takes me outdoors. But what can I say? Like seeing dirty dishes in the sink, I often see garden tasks to be done. But because of Aurora Bells sudden bolting behavior, cat walking needs full attention now, so there is little to do but look.
On days I have a little time, I come back out and do something. My garden is loving this winter attention. The bulbs brought from England are planted, roses pruned, the winter veggies in and fertilized, the sour grass tamed by mowing...
Which brings me to Day Lilies! Day Lilies?
I appreciate their strappy clusters of green foliage this time of year (many are evergreen) while most perennials are dormant, the annual flowers just a twinkle in a seed packet.
Admittedly though, I'm not CRAZY for day lilies, like I'm crazy for, say -dahlias. I can't use them as cut flowers - because like the name, their blooms last just one day.
But I am appreciating and planting them more even because they love my garden- what this little micro habitat has, they respond to. They are easy going and mostly pest free, unlike the dahlias that I still struggle with. I already have
a number of day lilies. I have decided to switch their placement up and add more colors....So this spring I will do some day lily time.
About Day lillies:
They come in a variety of flower shapes that bloom different times of the year, so you can have something blooming through the summer. Some have scent. Some have blooms for a couple weeks, stop and later rebloom. They are tough and even somewhat drought resistant. I like to use them in small clumps mixed in with other flowers as background color with attractive foliage, rather than the large rows they are often planted in in medians.
Here are some sources:
https://www.daylilygarden.com
https://www.slightlydifferentnursery.com
https://www.oakesdaylilies.com
https://smokeysgardens.com
This wreath is inspired by the movement from winter to spring. Moving forward in hope for renewal, growth and positive directions in 2020.
I wish you all the very best. I'm very grateful for this flower loving community and hope you will join our floral adventures in the coming year.
The late winter calendar will be coming out soon.
In a end of year blitz, I have posted photos from all the workshops from December back to late August. Enjoy!
The group was in agreement that grapevine base wreaths are a more enjoyable way to go over the immense amount of wire and time needed for a wreath built on a rigid wire base. (the jury still out for Vicki, our wreath Virgin who has not made a wire wreath).
They are simply beautiful, allowing the grapevine to play a significant role.
"I made my loops too tight, I have to rip it out and start over". Kathy and Kyra gasped- no!
Kathy is one of my oldest and dearest California friends. Kyra, her daughter, is my god-daughter. They invited me to a blanket knitting workshop right before Christmas- with practically a guarantee that we would walk out in three hours with a finished blanket made from yarn thick as a celery stick. Instead, I walked out with a mess of a start and 4 more skeins of yarn. I wasn't discouraged as I knew what to do in the next round. Mid- workshop I realized I had been making my stitches too tight, so I took my blanket apart. Then I worked too fast, sort of trying to catch up, made mistakes in hurrying and knew I had to take it apart yet again.
Part of the reason for my hasty work was that I had just been working on a garland prior to coming to this workshop. Geeze, for god's sake, here I was again, bending over a project in another medium, trying to get the right tension and finding a rhythm right so that all your materials create a row about the same thickness - It's second nature now in garland making, but not in the medium of yarn. What I should have done was to put my feet up and watch my friends fly through the creation of their cozy blankets and work on mine later when I was fresh. I had to laugh. If you have taken my workshops you know that the my mantra is deconstruct and reconstruct when needed. Bingo.
And a long Segway to introduce our second year at Serenity Farms. This time we used their amazing inventory of dried flowers to make garlands instead of wreaths. Wiring, like knitting is not always easy. The results were beautiful, though difficult to capture without a wide angle lens.
Celebration of Fall. In this workshop we used yet another support system for keeping flowers in place when working low and lush. It was a challenge, likely the most challenging of all workshops, due to the amount of flowers used. How to make a composition dense yet with movement, with a few varieties of flowers or many. What to do in the middle? And fruit, what about adding fruit?
All worthy composition problems in the study of floral design. Beautiful!
A return from England to a busy fall put me behind in term of editing and loading photos of your beautiful arrangements taken in the workshops.
Catching up now and must say it is a wonderful opportunity to review these lovely pieces- made just 5 short months ago!
Enjoy the memory of late summer again. I was out cleaning up the garden yesterday and noticed shoots from snowdrop bulbs poking up among the decaying leaves. Spring is not very far away here in California. But not yet. The wait makes the abundance to come all the more sweet.
These photos are work from Casual/ Yet Composed and the Window Box Workshop from Aztec Dahlias taken two weeks apart.
Casual,yet Composed
From my journal back in early September after the Window Box Workshop:
2:00pm on a hot September afternoon in the fields at Aztec Dahlias Flower Farm during clean-up, post workshop
This morning,shortly after dawn, I walked the fields, chilled despite my down jacket, choosing what to cut for the workshop today. I was just a
smidge annoyed as a team of people walked up and down the rows spraying the plants with a
non-toxic remedy for those green beetles that are kissing
cousin to ladybug. I do prefer be to Alone with the flowers at the farm pre- workshop. Its a short time of peace and
appreciation before the hectic day.
But the bugs must go. Oh well!
The flowers have been unusually
prolific this year. In the morning light I admire the coveted Cafe'O Laits flowering so profusely that it appeared to be no space
between the flower heads from plant to plant- just long, undulating
rows of cream/blush ruffles.
Now, hours later,
the sun is hot and strong. The daily afternoon wind is blowing through the fields. The
Cafe's now look like wilted mop heads. It's somewhat alarming, knowing that
these flowers are product to be sold and need to be converted into
dollars. But returning to the fields over and over the past 4 years, I know that
they will perk back up in the evening. The water stored the roots during the heat of the day travels back up into the
flower heads when the temperature and light drop. Perhaps these rather harsh conditions of
heat and wind, combined with enriched soil and just the
right amount of water actually make the
plants and thus flowers, stronger. It is an awesome dynamic of nature playing out in this flowering field.
Now to-
Windowbox Arrangements:
This is the first year I've offered this workshop and I think we all agreed that it is a keeper! The results are beautiful and the boxes offer so much flexibility from season to season.
It has been long enough since the workshop that all these pieces look new to me. I look at flowers in the studio everyday, flowers onscreen, flowers in books, flower in my head.... so forgive my forgetting.
But as I review them, I think "Wow, what a strong group!". I hope you feel the same way, now that your lovelies are a distant memory. And I hope you have continued to create with flowers in this every day way.
