Ship of Gouls

I've had this new vase for awhile and was going to make a sophisticated pave' style arrangement in it.

But had to get this ship thing out of my system first. Then I got to thinking about Halloween and that maybe it was a sort of dark pirate ship and if I added something sinister like a skeleton, it might be kind of scary. But it just looks a skeleton leg (no small children were harmed in the making of these photos) with some cool brown tissue y pods.

Unless....

Oh well, back to the flowers being flowers or pods, leaves and twigs being "botanicals" as they're referred to these days in the FD world. Always game to try something new and silly, ya'll.

 

For the Roses: Talk at San Francisco Rose Society

 

San Francisco Rose Society 

Adventures of a Floral Designer in the Rose Garden 

Sunday October 25

Time  1:15- 2:00

Where: Hall of Flowers/ County Fair Building Golden Gate Park (advice is to park on Lincoln as park is closed to traffic on Sunday) 

For a description of the talk look under EVENTS www.sfrosesociety.org

I was talking to a friend last night on the phone and telling her about the talk I'm giving tomorrow  She said, "I never thought you liked roses". She lives in drought free Olympia, WA. She's always dangling her chicken and sheep raising, vegetable growing, multi-acre spread in my face since she knows I'm curious about growing cut flowers and she has the perfect property to share.

Ah, she thought she knew me (she does). But there are roses and then there are roses.

Fall/ Winter Classes 2014

Natural Floral Design Classes
We practice techniques professionals use to create loose, garden like arrangements for your home or special events.
I advocate the use of locally grown flowers and botanicals and help you locate them.

The San Francisco Flower Mart Tour 
Full

Glorious Low Fall Arrangement

Cost: $79 plus additional $15 materials fee to be paid in class.

Attendees bring a low vase from home

Maximum 6

Date:  Saturday, November 22

Time 10-12

Where:  My Studio in San Rafael

Please RSVP and send check by Nov 1

We'll be using pin frogs to help make our arrangements, those small metal supports  that hold branches and other heavier materials in place. The emphasis will be on creating a low, spreading arrangement in celebration of the glory of fall!

Holiday Wreaths and Swags

Cost: $79   You bring a premade unadorned wreath. I’ll bring lots of fun embellishments and other greenery. 

Date:  Saturday, December 6

Time 10-12PM

Where: College of Marin, FA Room 312

http://www.marin.edu/CommunityEducation/schedule.html

I'll show techniques used to make many holiday decorations.We’ll embellish store bought wreaths and I’ll demonstrate how to make a naturalistic homemade wreath, and we’ll make swags from scratch. Students bring: An evergreen wreath (or order one from me), pruners capable of cutting evergreens, a pair of garden gloves. I will bring: cones, green,berries, ribbon, wire and other great embellishments.

http://www.marin.edu/CommunityEducation/schedule.html

Check back as I will be adding classes at The Ranch in Tiburon shortly.


 

Downward Dog, anyone?

Some of my yoga class got together this Saturday. We kept our shoes on, wore "regular clothes" and dangley jewelry and stayed right side up. This group is the real deal. We have come together for many years in a small, no frills room to do yoga together with our beloved  teacher, Claire Colvin. Year in, year out, here we are. But not today.

Today we had pruners and flowers in hand.
Truly, if you had told me three years ago that I would be teaching a floral class to my fellow practitioners, I would have laughed; me-teach-performance anxiety- no way- flowers- maybe- what? 

But that's what yoga does eventually. It opens you right up.

Everyone dove right in, chatting, laughing, helping each other, and doing a little extra foraging in Iris's beautiful garden- er, outdoor room. Thanks again for hosting, Iris. Everyone came away with an amazing Pave' and we raised some money for Yoga Center of Marin. 

Claire, Kathleen, Maryann, and Iris in Iris's garden

Maryann, Claire, Kathleen, Peggy, Ruth, and Iris 

Stacy 



 

And their creations!

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

As a floral designer and gardener I have an insatiable hunger for new materials to work with. Is this part of our modern society, to always be on the hunt for the next thing? I guess I only need remember the plant explorers of past centuries for that answer. Men and yes, women too, who put their lives literally on the line in the constant search for plants to intoxicate with their beauty, to consume, alter our states of consciousness, heal our bodies.....etcetera, etcetera. 

So my new discovery is a Heirloom Chocolate Morning Glory that's just coming into bloom in my garden after being planted from seed in the spring. It's a one day only blossom though using a length of vine cutting with large enough flower buds in water will provide subsequent blooms. Wow! For those of you who know my love of browned out flowers, well here it is. And I needn't go any further than Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Petaluma for my expedition: http://www.rareseeds.com/ 

The store is located in a venerable old bank in downtown Petaluma, befitting young Jere Gettle and his mid-west based company's mission to save seed varieties from around the world (by their count around 1600). They have become a tool to promote and preserve our agricultural and culinary heritage. There are three stores across the county, a magazine, and yearly festivals. We're lucky to have the National Heirloom Festival put on by Baker Creek, held annually up north in Santa Rosa in early September. This is a real hoe down featuring growers, speakers, and like minded organizations amidst a backdrop of amazing vegetables. 

Best of all is the enormous winter squash mountain carefully built squash by squash to a towering height- but back to the Morning Glory...

Out of the Doldrums....and into fall

 This Petunia got me out of a little funk. The word I kept repeating in my - never stops talking- interior dialog, was doldrums.  It's a word used (thanks Wikki) to describe places of "low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing ocean winds are calm". If you're in a sailboat, this is not usually a good situation.  Colloquially, the doldrums "are a state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness or stagnation". Sounds about right.

I like the nautical association. I've been chasing after hot weather and water this summer. Only not in a sailboat, but in mountain lakes. Ideally it would have been great to have warmish water & hot weather while in that sailboat, but that's a hard combination to find locally. It's gets pretty foggy and cool in coastal Northern California in late summer so an escape is needed if you want a lazy, languid slice of summer. So we settled on hot weather in cold, cold mountain lakes. But there are no more mountain lakes scheduled & we're going into September and beautiful fall. The brakes are on. Not ready, not ready- yet.

Ah, back to the petunia. It's a perennial variety from a grower the local Farmer's Market. So far it's pretty tough, does not need much water and keeps re- blooming. I love the color and how it works in the garden. Though I wouldn't use it for event work, it's surprisingly resilient to work with. I think petunias are another one of those- so out they'll come back in- flowers, especially with varieties like this around. They feel a little retro like the teapot.

simple, simple

small wedding, Big Love

For a couple who took a long, slow road that ended up at the altar. They don't want to be all over social media. They just want to keep it in their circle. That is a pretty cool idea these days. Congratulations! 

Game Changer

Pairings: What is interesting to me is when a flower out of current favor in the design world gets paired with something that is really popular and helps the "lesser" flower get another look.  In this case I'm really responding to lowly blue spiky agapantha with the very popular clematis (about 10 days old & still beautiful). Then the carnation (lots of signs of of a return ) is combined with the a variety of big leafy geranium foliage that is all over these days.

Embrace prejudices and to keep trying to look with open eyes.

And well, I just added this big onion flower and the blue vase because I liked the contrast of the rustic, earthiness of the onion with the elegant blue vase.

Part 2: Some of the Wedding Flowers

Let it be known that working with flowers for a living, and especially providing them for large events is simply a lot of hard physical work. When people have an image of a florist working with flowers, perhaps they have a picture of someone working at a bench, thoughtfully and artfully adding this or that to the subject at hand. Ah yes, yes, maybe a few more roses here and a dash of ornamental grass there…. There is so fricking much time and effort leading up to that moment and what lies ahead; the bleary early hours at the flower mart, heavy buckets of water, thorns that want to bite your flesh, endless flowers to recut and strip. Are the vases going to be delivered in time? Things will go wrong, solutions need to be improvised. Flowers will wilt in the sun – or in this case of this wedding, the ferocious wind. But it does get you to the moment when you ponder the curl of a leaf, the gesture of a branch and it’s so worth it. You're caught in flower fever and keep coming back for more. The seduction of flowers….

I’ve done most events by myself and it’s particularly intense. What was wonderful about this experience was the comradery of a group of talented people working together to create something amazing; and working to do it in Ariella’s style. We had an overabundance of amazing food to snack on as we worked through all the wedding components. Plus we got to forage a lot of flowers and botanicals at the farm. Need some more olive branches? Just walk on over to that tree and start cutting. We also foraged exquisite garden roses and more clematis. I learned so much being there and was so very grateful to be there. Thank you, Ariella for your generosity of spirit and softly singing for us that one afternoon.