Celebration of Spring Class- finally!

Canon has great tech support for their cameras. A very patient soul from West Virginia walked me through the lengthy steps to upload my raw files. No, not raw food- raw photographic files, the unadulterated images that come from digital SLR type cameras. I accidentally shot the beautiful arrangements from our class in that format and couldn't upload them. I won't bore you with the gory details. 

Come see their work. The focus was on using floral pin frogs that support heavy plant material and keep everything in place.
 

The National Flower of Israel

Didn't mean to start a National Flower of....Series. These anemone coronaria are left over from a floral class and it occurred to me to include some photos of the very popular 
anemones following my post of the very unpopular carnations. The flowers also come in bright colors and all have a very haunting dark slate blue center. In the case of this white one (with a little pink dashed about), it's as close to a white and black flower as I can think of. It has contrast, a rather unique feature in flowers.


And what do you know? They are a national flower too. Which means that they have significance enough to be given a designation. In some cases they grown in abundance in a particular local or were cultivated and beloved enough to be adopted. I see the rose has been claimed by many a country while the wild banana orchid has only been claimed by the Cayman Islands. 

As I'm always intrigued about the flower/human relationship this is an interesting little road to explore.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/a-complete-list-of-national-flowers-by-country.html


My apologies to the Celebration of Spring Class. I'll upload the photos as soon as I can figure out how to.

The National Flower of Spain

 These carnations are so amazing; there is so much going on in each flower and the brown undertone keeps it from being garish. I know- most people yawn when they see a carnation. Flowers come and go in fashion and carnations are pretty unpopular now; on the west coast, anyway. No wait- I mean to say that they're are popular as cut flowers/fillers in supermarkets but are perceived as too common for special events. Designers tend to avoid them. Which probably means they'll get "discovered" again. I think they deserve another shot.

The lure of the carnation for me is the spicy scent. It's my favorite flower smell. Roger and Gallet began making a perfume called Blue Carnation in 1937. They seem to have discontinued making it recently. I found some of their carnation soap in a store that sold discontinued merchandise about a year ago. The scent was incredible. Damn. No matter. I'm even less inclined to wear perfume as I am to wear jewelry. 

Guess I need a post it note that says : Wear jewelry-today!