Virginia's irises

Last summer, my optician, with whom I have become friends, gave me and Helen a tour of her iris garden.  She has lots of different varieties and we chose those we loved.  A few weeks later she gave me a bag of iris rhizomes which I course let sit in the garage until they were dried out twigs.  I finally felt guilty enough to plant them in my little nursery bed on the side of the house and hoped for the best. 
Amazing, this spring, they have flourished and are sending up the most beautiful blossoms.  I am thrilled.  I will tag them as to color and then divide them so Helen can have some as well.

  Years ago I was driving along and saw a tiny sign on the side of the road that said Irises (with a little arrow).  I followed it and came to the garden of Betty White (the other Betty White of course).  She grew irises and would sell you a cutting for $3.  She had hundreds of varieties in her garden and grew them in large beds in rows.  It was a magical place and I have thought about her garden for years.  So now, maybe I will get started on my own collection, years later than advised but anyway.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone and thank you for reading my blog.  When I look at the different countries that readers come from I am just amazed - people from Iran, Pakistan, Austria, China, Europe, Australia are reading this blog! - it is mind boggling and such fun to contemplate.  So thanks everyone and have a nice holiday today.

April Ikebana

Yesterday we had a nice ikebana class - the style was Shoka Shimputai - 3 elements in a straight line in the center of the kenzan.   For mine, I borrowed the teacher's container and used a wonderful gold orchid, an iris leaf and a sprig of burgandy and green euphorbia.   A really simple recipe but a beautiful outcome.  The second picture is a closeup of an incredible tulip from the teacher's garden - it was so full it looked like a peony.  Backed by a trimmed monstera leaf it made a bold statement.

Romantic arrangement

The other day I made two arrangements for delivery.  I found the most fabulous rose called Suez - it is a dusty pink with a cream tinge.  I used them with fantastic parrot tulips and beautiful carnations in the same coloration and a light gold spray rose and some eucalyptus and bells of ireland.  I love the colors in this piece.

More from AIFD Southern

Here is another photo of a piece I made for the AIFD Southern conference in March.  For this one I wove the Italian aspidistra paper around a tall cylinder in a lattice pattern.  I only wove this on the top half of the container.  I put an anthirium on the bottom of the container in a bed of black rocks, and then horizontal arrangement across the top.  The photo does not do it justice - it worked out pretty well and was interesting.  I used green cymbidiums, black matsumoto branches, parrot tulips and more anthiriums.  Again, not a great picture, but the piece worked out well.

Looking at photos on the blog

For the one or two of you know don't know this - you can click on any picture on my blog and blow them up so you can see more details of the work.  My photography skills are pretty minimal but I persevere, if only to have a record of the work I do for various clients so I don't repeat myself.

Reunion Dinner

This past weekend, Holton hosted Reunion weekend.  I made these pieces for the big Saturday night dinner.  The buffet pieces were made from a whole stalk of brown/gold cymbidium orchids immersed in water in a tall cylinder.  They stood on a pin holder that was hidden with a nest of gold angel hair wire with pearls trapped in it.  I also floated pearls in the water and glued some onto the mitsumate branch that encased the orchids.  The caberet table pieces were a single orchid floating on a bed of pearls, and the small centerpieces were composed of wonderful gold Combo roses and the same orchids. 

More Landon events

We also did some pieces for a tea at Landon early in the week - also pink and green.  The weather did not cooperate - it was a cold dreary day, but the farmhouse is a lovely place to spend an afternoon drinking tea!  For these arrangements we found the prettiest pink gladiolas, had them rising from a circle of hydranga and roses in nice old silver container for the dining room table, for the coffee table in the living room we made a long low piece with the same flowers. 

Landon Mother's Day

Each year, Landon School has a Mother's Day program well in advance of the real day.  The moms come to visit classes and participate in other programs during the day.  This year they asked for pink and green arrangements and this year we found great parrot tulips, pink heather, snapdragons and roses of course, to come up with these arrangements.

Spring is here (sort of, it is still chilly)

Spring in DC -  another cool and wet one this year - a drag if you are dying for consistent warm weather (like me), but the cool weather keeps all the blooms on the flowers and trees around so much longer it is really better. You can really enjoy it all in detail even though you are still wearing your winter coat and freezing.

Anyway, with the spring comes the usual mad rush of orders.  Many of our clients like fairly simple overall forms of arrangements but within these forms it is lots of fun to play with color and the combinations of different types of flowers.