Window Box Arrangements

It was a happy day when window boxes decided to jump off the house and join the party. I was 5 years old when my parents bought two window boxes that happened to be attached to our new house in a recently built housing development. The development was carved out of beautiful, rural farm land in Baltimore County. It's embarrassing to admit this, but that purchase was part of a white exodus that began when the black population of Baltimore began migrating from the inner city to neighborhoods like the one we were about to leave. Baltimore was very segregated at that time. My five year old mind knew that segregation was wrong and didn't jive as my friend, Elizbeth's wood desk sat right in front of mine at St. Bernadine's. 

But I digress. On this property every spanking new home came with two empty window boxes. While a homey touch,  they seemed more appropriate in the narrow streets of Europe flanked by shutters painted a regional color. There, they  were close enough to admire on foot rather than a blurry drive by in a decidedly car oriented way of life.
  

The contemporary cut flower take on this traditional form of outdoor planting is extraordinarily variable. It's a long, horizontally oriented arrangement. It seems a fitting aesthetic with modern decor, rustic or contemporary. The flowers can be much more relaxed than a traditional arrangement. The container for my first one was made out of chicken wire. No chickens were harmed in the making of this arrangement.

 

A tuberose by any other name is a Nardo

 A few years back someone told me that the name 'Nardo" is the name of a white flower that grows in Spain. Feeling such a long and profound connection with plants, this felt like an affirmation of the latest evolution of my life with plants as a floral designer. It didn't matter that I personally wasn't Spanish, but Sicilian. Spain was but one of the myriad countries that invaded and occupied Sicily throughout it's history, so I come up with this little scenario...

Perhaps some of the little tubers were carried across the sea in the corset of a courtesan. Once established in the newly acquired royal garden on Sicilian soil, the tubers were thus entrusted to a peasant, well known in the land for their talent in growing. The flowers grew so abundantly in the familiar hot summer conditions that great bouquets of Nardos filled the church on Worship Days. Henceforth, the gardeners that were charged with growing the seed - oops, little tubers were also called Nardos and thus.....therefore, thou....

Fantasy aside, (plus my brother, the family historian, tells me that our surname is not derived from a flower), plants often were transported from one Continent to other as another form of extreme souvenir collecting. This was sometimes benign; in others thorough enough to decimate entire plant populations. A little online delving reveals the tuberose was subject to this form of collecting as it is native to Central America. While the Spaniards were  conquering in the Southern Hemisphere they must have found this new flower with it's heady perfume and long lasting waxy flowers quite appealing; surely a discovery to impress a queen. It could have taken many lost tubers to learn how to keep them viable from the journey from the New World to back to the Old World.

It was only slightly disappointing to learn that the white flower was the tuberose, a flower I've avoided using the past few years, because the double blossomed, cultivated variety is just awkward and clumpy, somehow. The scent was sometimes too overpowering. However the native single blossomed variety is a different creature for me, each flower separate on stems that have curves, movement, and a delicacy it's much hybridized relatives lack.

Two weeks ago, this flower became available from my favorite grower at Front Porch Farms in Healdsburg:
https://fpfarm.com/flowers/ 

As Zoe relates, "the tubers were given to me by an old man from North Carolina who's been farming for 40 years. They were given to him by a woman who was old when he was young. These things are special, that's all I'm getting at". After a week, the scent is still going strong and the flowers continue to bloom with a little clipping of the spent blossoms. I couldn't agree more Zoe!

Chicken Wire Workshop

Yes siree, by gum; it was an emergency. Time and time again I've gone to our local Marin County Farmer's Market this summer to be seduced by bucket after bucket of one amazing flower after another to choose from. 

The wet winter allowed a particular abundance of flowers, but more than that; growers have been listening to designers and growing flowers that are more nuanced in color and shape. This year the selection has been outstanding.

I knew better than to hold a class during the summer when everyone was sunning and eating barbecue or jetting off to Iceland, but yet again- the flowers were flowing. It couldn't be helped.

So time to call an Emergency Chicken Wire Workshop! Yes, a few fell to the siren call of other summer activities, but these women knew where the real action was taking place. Here is their fine work.