The Garden Room at Restaurant Nora

In May and June, Hal and I made arrangements for Restaurant Nora at Dupont Circle in DC. For the first time we worked with a combination of silk and dried flowers - something we had not tried before. We did a number of small arrangements for various spaces and then a large installation in a window box type of container in the Garden Room of the restaurant. They wanted something bright and cheerful and we gave them a summer meadow full of sunflowers, grasses and black eyed susans.

Erika's mom

I wanted to post a picture of Gretchen, Erika's mom, on the day of the wedding. She looked so cute in a pretty dress with a great smile, holding a rose as she walked down the aisle.

Experiments

I have challenged myself to create at least one new type of arrangement a week for the rest of the summer. I went to a great lecture on floral design a few weeks ago at Hillwood - the Marjorie Merrieweather Post estate in DC. They have an incredible cutting garden and I am so jealous.
Anyway, the speaker, a florist from California, was quite upfront about lifting design ideas from everyone and everywhere and that was quite liberating. So, my friend Lesley and I will try out some new ideas based on the designs of others and see where it leads us.

The basis of this design was 4 tall elements in the corners of the vase over a pave type arrangement. I used white dahlias for the tall elements, with the same dahlias, grey brunia and hanging amaranthus in the pave. Lesley used sunflowers for the tall elements and mums and brezillia berries for the pave and added a cage of river cane to keep the sunflowers upright and a middle element of lavender.

Erika and Brian's wedding

Our cousin Erika got married last Saturday to Brian and I was happy to do the flowers for the wedding. The color scheme was blue and white and we used white gerbers with dark centers, delphinium, nigella, white roses and daisies for the bridal party flowers. It was a beautiful clear day in Frederick and she was a beautiful bride.

We made tall arrangements to frame the walk for the bridal party and created a candy buffet with the 40 pounds of blue candy they ordered. This picture is of the set up in my dining room before we took it up to the venue.