A detail of my arrangement demonstrated after my Slow Flowers lecture at Filoli. Note the lovely flowering passionvine tendrils dripping from the base.
Filoli, the iconic early 20th Century estate in Woodside, California, is listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is a cultural institution where people come to learn, explore and be inspired by nature just minutes away from the city.
Filoli is also known for its Floral Design Certificate program and that’s what brought me there last Friday to lecture and teach, thanks to the invitation of Cathy Rampley, head of education, and Katherine Glazier, one of the instructors in the floral design program.
When planning ahead to order flowers for a couple large-scale floral designs and a hands-on workshop for 20 students, I always tell the organizers that I want local, American grown flowers. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Sometimes, like last week, it’s impossible to do otherwise. After all, we shopped at the San Francisco Flower Mart, which is where the best flowers available are California Grown.
The scale of this vessel allowed me to go very wide with the branches and stems.
I had so much fun digging through the storage closets at the Filoli estate house to select vessels for my designs. The ceramic piece you see above is measures approximately 14 inches in diameter, a turquoise-glazed dish mounted in a brass stand. Its shallowness challenged me and despite the 7-inch pin frog attached to the inside base, I mounded a large piece of chicken wire to dome over the opening.
Detail of autumn colors and textures, including the Cotinus, the peachy-orange dahlias, antique hydrangeas and the yellow-orange Ilex.
This arrangement proves my theory that when a vase is shallow, you can build the bouquet 2- to 3-times the width of the opening. Using smoke tree (Cotinus) clipped from Filoli by the gardening staff and inserted so it soars off to one side allowed me to exaggerate the horizontal. Several antique hydrangea blooms, sourced from Half Moon Bay nearby, rest on the rim of the bowl and anchor it visually. I needed quite a bit of greenery to fill the volume and hide the mounded chicken wire (seriously, this piece was larger than a basketball cut in half!). Lots of the foliage was sourced from Filoli, including a type of large-leaf ivy and coffee berry branches.
Mums, zinnias, dahlias, gomphrena, amaranth, scented geranium — all from Washington. I added a few goodies from my friend Cheryl’s backyard in Altadena, California (including tree fern fronds and limelight hydrangeas)
The flowers spoke to me. Especially that gorgeous dusky pink chrysanthemum, right?
I stopped by the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market last Wednesday to drop off some books and while there, Vivian Larson’s beautiful fall mums said, “Pick us!”
Look at those petals! They are so distinctly formed. I love that the underside of each petal is a paler version of the top of each petal.
We’ve been swimming in dahlia season here in the Pacific Northwest, and no one lives dahlias more than I do. But the “next new thing” is always around the corner. And those of us who love everything that Vivian grows at Everyday Flowers in Stanwood, Washington, have been waiting. Patiently. For. The. Mums.
Mums are having a renaissance. I asked Viv if they are any harder to grow than dahlias? No, she said. So why aren’t more people planting them? I’m not sure, but I did tell Viv she needs to up her game next year. I want to have a “Specialty Mum Festival” at the SWGMC next fall, following the late summer Dahlia Festival we’ve hosted for the past 2 years.
Then I picked some other goodies to blend and balance with the unusual pink. What pulled it all together for me were the Queen Red Lime zinnias, which Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall grow at Jello Mold Farm, not far from Viv’s place. That flower has a perfect combination of pink, reddish-maroon and lime green petals. So easy to pull together a palette of flowers and foliage when you can use something like Queen Red Lime.
Love how all the greens enliven this bouquet.
For my greens, I added a variegated/scented pelargonium leaf, grown by Pam and Kelly Uhlig of Sonshine Farm on Whidbey Island, Washington. They are new growers whose talents are notable! And I grabbed some lime green amaranth, thanks, Jello Mold.
For my deep reddish-maroon elements, I grabbed a ball-shaped dahlia, grown by Dawn Severin of All My Thyme, in Mt. Vernon, Washington.
Dawn is a girly-girl grower. Everything I see from All My Thyme is feminine and romantic.
Reddish pops continued to catch my eye, including the charming little gomphrenas, grown by Sarah and Steve Pabody of Triple Wren Farm in Lynden, Washington.
Okay. Brought everything home. It was Wednesday afternoon.
I was scheduled to fly to Burbank on Thursday morning to give a talk at the Los Angeles Arboretum for the “Compulsive Gardeners” group, and I clearly did not save time to arrange and photograph my flowers for the (sadly, ignored) Slow Flowers Challenge.
What to do? Well, bring the flowers with me, of course.
Here’s what I did:
I shortened the stems so that everything fit into one black floral bucket and added about 3-inches of water. The bucket rests perfectly inside a vinyl grocery shopping bag. Of course, I dumped the H20 out of the bucket in order to get through security and then re-filled it minutes later. And that’s how these flowers accompanied me when I flew to Burbank on Thursday morning. I couldn’t have been lucky since Alaska Airlines bumped me up to First Class and the crew made space for my bag of flowers in the First Class closet. They had a little bit of water and fared quite well on the trip.
Top view to show you how huge and lovely the mums appear in this bouquet.
Love this glass bowl – it’s the perfect vessel for these late-summer beauts!
I arrived at the home of my host and friend Cheryl Bode on Thursday afternoon. While we were chatting in her living room, I spotted this art-glass vase on the bookcase. “Can I use that piece of glass to make you a bouquet?” I asked.
Cheryl indulged me and I set up a flower-arranging bar outside on her potting bench. Her garden is truly world class, a plant geek’s oasis.
I’ve written about Cheryl and her wife Robin Colman’s garden for the Los Angeles Times and for Horticulture magazine, so you can only imagine.
“Is it okay to clip a few of your Los Angeles plants to add to these Seattle goodies?” Again, she said, “Yes.”
So here’s what I created. The bowl is perfect in scale and shape for a low centerpiece. I didn’t want to scratch the inside of the blown glass piece so I opted not to use chicken wire. Instead, I started the arrangement by crisscrossing the scented geranium and amaranth foliage, creating a matrix to sustain the other blooms. It worked out pretty well, I think.
When I left Cheryl last Friday, this arrangement remained on her dining table. I’m so pleased that I could bring these blooms with me to her home – and use one of her own pieces to design my Slow Flowers Challenge bouquet for the week.
Here’s hoping you’re still enjoying the last flowers of summer and that Jack Frost doesn’t show up until November 1st at least!
A red-white-and-blue, All-American bouquet! (c) Tim Gleason
Floral Fireworks for July 4th (c) Tim Gleason
Happy Independence Day!
We have so many opportunities to celebrate local, seasonal and beautiful flowers and there’s no better one than welcoming Week 25 of the Slow Flowers Challenge which coincides with the July 4th holiday.
Join me in clipping and arranging red-white-and-blue botanicals to honor the holiday.
I am so excited that all of the flowers in this week’s stellar arrangement came from one of my favorite flower farms,Charles Little & Co. of Eugene, Oregon. I visited this past week and received permission from Bethany Little to harvest to my heart’s content. Thank you, Bethany!
Tomorrow begins the inaugural American Flowers Weekcampaign, a tribute to the farmers who grow flowers in all 50 states, and to the artisans who interpret those flowers in bouquets, arrangements and other botanical beauty.
You are invited to take part in American Flowers Week by posting the flowers you grow and arrange on all social platforms with the hash-tag #americanflowersweek.
Learn more and download this lovely logo by clicking here.
Here are a few more details about this week’s bouquet:
A profusion of red, white and blue annuals and perennials for July 4th (c) Tim Gleason
White flowers:
Variegated green-white sedum as foliage (which you can barely see!)
Oh joy! The hellebores are blooming quite early this year.
Up close, the detail is so lovely and intricate
For better or worse, Seattle’s uber-mild winter means that many of our early flowers are emerging weeks ahead of schedule.
I’m worried that our gardens and fields will need a lot more water this summer, but we can only say that Mother Nature decided to give us warmer temperatures and extra sunshine this year – more than previous winters in recent memory.
Diane Szukovathy and Dennis Westphall of Jello Mold Farm grew the hellebores you see here – and let me tell you, their luscious blooms were flying out of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market when they arrived.
I snagged the *last* bunch of the plum hellebores and grabbed only 4 stems of the beautiful pale speckled ones.
Gorgeous specialty tulips also caught my eye – so much more substantial and visually arresting than the hothouse ones coming out of Canada. These were lovingly grown by Gonzalo Ojeda of Ojeda Farms, a member of the SWGMC who farms in Ethel, Washington. One bunch of 10 stems, while short, provided plenty of tulips to add dazzle to two vases.
Plum and berry hues with pale green & butter yellow in a vintage white vase.
Jasmine isn’t winter-hardy here in Seattle, but boy do I remember it clambering over the stucco retaining wall in our former garden in California’s Ventura County. On the first Thanksgiving we lived there – after moving from Seattle in 2006 – my friend Nancy, visiting from Seattle, created our entire Thanksgiving tablescape from the bounty of our new backyard – including that lacy jasmine.
Molly Sadowsky, the SWGM’s manager and principal buyer, has a secret California source for evergreen Jasmine – and the designers here in Seattle absolutely love it! Me, too! I love that the jasmine foliage is also a gorgeous aspect of this arrangement, a bonus to the fragrant flowers and buds.
Oh, and there is one element from my Seattle garden: the delicate pale yellow flowers from Epimedium, a beautiful groundcover. I only had a few stems to add, but their petals echo the Hellebores’ centers, adding a delicate texture.
Hellebores for the People Designed by Mick & Olivia Payment,
owners of Flowers for the People
Hellebores with orchids, roses, pincushion protea, jasmine and more – designed by Olivia and Mick Payment
Earlier this week, the SWGM hosted its first Orchid Spectacular to showcase a wide array of Local and American-grown potted and cut orchids. The Market staff invited Mick and Olivia, a brother-and-sister design team, to demonstrate how they design with orchids in arrangements and interior planters.
You’ll be wowed by one of their designs pictured here. I wanted to share it because of the diversity of flowers they incorporated, including Lady Slipper orchids from Orchidaceae of Walla Walla, Washington, and hellebores from Jello Mold Farm (the “leftovers” ended up in my design above).
The yellow-green-pink palette is such a breath of fresh air! Mick and Olivia also used CA-grown roses and pincushion proteas to masterfully express their inspiration to use domestic flowers.
The NWFGS opened today and runs through February 15th at the Washington State Convention Center. Follow the links in the sidebar to the right and you’ll find details about “One Bouquet; Three Ways,” design presentations I’m giving on Friday 2/13 and Sunday 2/15. Please join me if you’re in the area! All seminars are free with show admission.
I titled my floral entry “Show Your Love With Local (Flowers),” which is fitting with the show’s theme of “Romance Blossoms.” I knew I wanted to display American-grown flowers in American-made vases, so I’ve spent the past several months thinking about how to best portray that idea. The end result is above.
The idea germinated when I gathered together all the American-made vases I wanted to use, both in my own collection and those I wanted to add. Mostly in the teal-aqua-lime green spectrum, I looked at them and thought: “Each is beautiful on its own, but together they will look like a jumble unless I figure out how to organize them.” And that’s when the idea of a curio cabinet came to mind.
Here’s my original sketch I sent to Andy Chapman of Stumpdust, a talented woodworker and artist who I persuaded to construct what I envisioned in my mind’s eye.
It’s pretty amazing that my sketch is pretty close to the final product (discounting my poor perspective drawing skills!)
The teal and white “bubble vase” by Kristin Nelson of Vit Ceramics inspired the painted “back” of each nook of the curio cupboard.
We met to figure out the dimensions, making sure the “nooks” would have enough negative space to accommodate my flowers, while being balanced proportionately.
Andy took some measurements and we agreed to a cupboard that was about 24-inches wide by about 30-inches tall, with 6-inch deep shelves. The bottom two spaces are 12-inches square; the center ones are 9-1/2-inches tall x 7 to 9 inches wide; the top row has 6-1/2-inch cubbies by the same width as those on the center row.
I really love how Andy staggered the uprights on the top and center rows to make the spaces more visually interesting.
He used scrap lumber and suggested I purchase a thin board at the home center that I could pre-paint before he attached to the back, like the back of a bookcase. That worked out swell and I chose a high-gloss turquoise hue called ‘Seafarer’ from Lowe’s. I think it looks great in contrast to the natural boards.
This sketch is a little more refined!
The paint color makes all the glazes and glass colors pop, and unifies the display. White flowers and just a small amount of foliage keeps everything fresh-looking. Plus, I suspected that there would be a lot of red and pink this week (there is!) and I wanted to show an alternative to the predictable Valentine’s week floral palette.
It all came together beautifully and after I picked up the finished piece from Andy last weekend, I had fun arranging and rearranging the vases for maximum impact.
And thanks to the amazing selection of white flowers from Washington, Oregon and California flower farms, I was able to showcase the diversity of American-grown floral options for Valentine’s Day.
Here is the Slowflowers.com flier I created, a takeaway for showgoers who might be interested in finding their own American-made vases or changing the way they purchase flowers – selecting domestic, local and seasonal options.
SHOW YOUR LOVE WITH LOCAL: AMERICAN-GROWN FLOWERS in AMERICAN-MADE VASES
Top Row, from Left:
Little Shirley vases by Material Good / material-good.com (Seattle) with California sweet peas
Aqua bud vase by Heath Ceramics / heathceramics.com (San Francisco) with California anemones and Dusty Miller foliage from my Seattle garden.
‘Imagine’ lime green votive by Glassy Baby / glassybaby.com (Seattle) with California-grown privet berries and cream spray roses (Green Valley Floral)
Middle Row, from Left:
Teal glass Ball Jars (USA made) with California grown ‘Gerrondo’ gerberas and Daphne odora foliage from my Seattle garden.
Vintage aqua flower-pot by McCoy Pottery (USA made) with California wax flowers and proteas.
Aqua Madagascar bud vase by Bauer Pottery / bauerpottery.com (Los Angeles) with Washington hyacinths and flowering plum branches
Bottom Row, from Left:
Blue/teal Bubble Vase by Vit Ceramics / vitceramics.com (Seattle) with Asiatic lilies from Oregon Flowers and Pieris japonica from my Seattle garden.
Aqua recycled wine bottle vase by Wine Punts / winepunts.com (Colorado) with California variegated pittosporum foliage and parrot tulips from Alm Hill Gardens in Everson, Washington.
Flower Shadowbox designed by Debra Prinzing of Slowflowers.com and Custom fabricated by Andy Chapman of Stumpdust.com.
The Commission is committed to making a difference as an advocate for American Grown Flowers.
I’ll be working closely with CCFC on a number of initiatives to promote domestic flowers in 2015, and I promise to keep you posted as details unfold.
Today on the Slow Flowers Podcast we launch the Slow Flowers Challenge, share all about a new urban flower farm in Pittsburgh, and explore the meaning of flowers on a personal level with author and gardening personality Fran Sorin.
To kick off 2015, I invite you to join in the fun and creativity of the Slow Flowers Challenge. This project was inspired by Katherine Tracy, a talented plantswoman, designer and owner of Avant Gardens Nursery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Katherine blogged about taking the “Slow Flowers Challenge” after hearing my presentation at Blithewold Mansion and Gardens in Rhode Island this past fall…and she started using the hashtag #slowflowerschallenge, which in turn prompted other people to create seasonal bouquets, photograph them and share their designs on Facebook, Instagram and personal blogs.
Katherine’s artistic arrangements reveal her love of the natural world, the seasons, the plants, the gifts of the garden and wilder places. I’ve so enjoyed seeing these bouquets pop up across the web – thoroughly serendipitous and seasonal – representing pure joy for a moment in time. SO I thought, “why don’t we make the Challenge available to everyone who loves local flowers?”
I encourage you to check out these very simple rules and download a free SlowFlowersResourceGuide2015 here. Sign up to receive weekly design updates and follow a link to the Slow Flowers Pinterest Gallery, where you are welcomed and encouraged to post your seasonal arrangements. Let’s have fun, make beauty, and change the American floral industry with new (and more seasonal) habits.
Briefly, before getting to our main guest, I also invited Jonathan Weber to share what’s going on with greenSinner, a Pittsburgh-based floral design, wedding and event studio and urban micro flower farm that he owns and runs with partner Jimmy Lohr.
Past guests of this podcast, the two have made good on their dream — to buy more land and establish a working flower farm. Jonathan and Jimmy recently purchased 4 acres of long-neglected land inside the Pittsburgh city limits. It’s called Midsummer Hill Farm.
I couldn’t be more excited to see them take this major step, but so much is needed to get seedlings and bulbs into the soil in time for flowers to bloom in 2015. Here’s a recent article featuring greenSinner, Midsummer Hill Farm and Jimmy and Jonathan’s crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo, which runs through January 27th. I encourage you to check it out and perhaps invest in the growth of local flowers in Pittsburgh.
Fran Sorin, author of “Digging Deep.”
The just-released, 10th Anniversary Edition of “Digging Deep.” Read on to find out how you can enter to win!
Today’s guest Fran Sorin is an author, gardening and creativity expert, and deep ecologist. Her book, Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening, was groundbreaking when published in 2004. It was the first book to address gardening in the context of creativity, and as a tool for well-being and personal transformation. Here is a link to my blog post about “Digging Deep for Flower Lovers,” sharing favorite excerpts from Fran’s book.
Fran recently released an updated 10th Anniversary Edition of Digging Deep. The book is even more vital today, because our culture has become increasingly obsessed with technology and progressively more “nature deprived.”
From the moment Fran decided she wanted to share her passion for gardening with a large audience and approached the local Fox TV station in Philadelphia about the idea, she became a fixture on the TV circuit. She spent years as a gardening authority on Philadelphia’s Fox and NBC stations; she was the regular gardening contributor on NBC’s WeekendToday Show, and made several appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Lifetime, HGTV, DIY, and the Discovery Channel. She is one of the creators of the popular weekly dose of garden news at Gardening Gone Wild Blog.
Fran is celebrating her tenth year as a CBS Radio News correspondent. Her Digging Deep gardening features are heard several times a week on CBS Radio stations throughout the United States. She has also written dozens of articles about gardening and well-being for USA Weekend Magazine, Radius Magazine, and iVillage.
She has spent more than twenty-five years initiating and working on community projects that have served the diverse community of West Philadelphia, most recently initiating a community garden and learning center on the grounds of a church in an underprivileged neighborhood of West Philadelphia.
Even prior to becoming an ordained interfaith minister, Fran was ministering to folks whether she was taking on the role as a garden designer, a media trainer, a TV personality, or a radio host. Fran’s greatest strengths are in connecting to audiences and individuals and galvanizing them to take action. In these tumultuous and technologically obsessed times, when so many of us feel stuck, scared, and disconnected from ourselves and others, her optimistic, grounded values, and empowering message are needed more than ever.
Here is Fran’s video – she’s a woman on the street, sharing her inspiring “Give a Flower. Get a Smile” project:
If you want to participate in the drawing for a free copy of Digging Deep, post a comment about your earliest memory of gardening or experiencing nature. Your comment enters you into the drawing, which takes place at midnight Pacific Time, this Saturday, Jan. 10th. We’ll announce the winner next week.
My personal goal is to put more American grown flowers on the table, one vase at a time. Listeners like you have downloaded the Slow Flowers Podcast more frequently than ever before. We’re at nearly 30,000 downloads, which will be an exciting milestone to reach in the coming week. So I thank you!!! If you like what you hear, please consider logging onto Itunes and posting a listener review.
The Slow Flowers Podcast is engineered and edited by Andrew Wheatley and Hannah Holtgeerts. Learn more about their work at hhcreates.net.
What better New Year’s Resolution than to resolve to live locally with your flowers and floral designs for the coming year?!
This week launches the Slow Flowers Challenge, and I invite you to join in the fun and creativity.
A possible collection of stems and fruit inspired by Slow Flowers, photographed by Katherine Tracy of Avant Gardens Nursery.
This inclusive project was inspired by Katherine Tracy, a talented plantswoman, designer and owner of Avant Gardens Nurseryin Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Katherine’s Nov. 7th arrangement, created the week after we met at Blithewold in Rhode Island.
She started using the hashtag #slowflowerschallenge, which in turn prompted other people to create seasonal bouquets, photograph them and share their designs on Facebook, Instagram and personal blogs.
Katherine’s artistic arrangements reveal her love of the natural world, the seasons, the plants, the gifts of the garden and wilder places where she lives and gardens in New England.
I’ve so enjoyed seeing these bouquets pop up across the web – thoroughly serendipitous and seasonal – representing pure joy for a moment in time. These personal expressions resonated with me – they brought me back to the year I spent making one bouquet per week from the flowers that grow around me.
“Why don’t we make the Challenge available to everyone who loves local flowers?”
It’s official and you’re invited to join The Slow Flowers Challenge 2015.
The Rules:Live in the season. Source locally. Use earth-friendly materials and supplies. The more frequently you arrange flowers, the more familiar you’ll become with each of these aspects.
What: The Slow Flowers Challenge is an ongoing practice of creating seasonal arrangements and sharing your designs with the Slow Flowers Tribe.
Why: The practice is timeless. The gesture is universal. Inspired by the exquisite beauty of a garden or by the sentiment of a special occasion, we gather flowers and foliage and place them in a vessel to display in our homes or give to another. Floral design is a three-dimensional art form that blends horticulture and nature with sculptural composition. At its best, bouquet making is a personal expression unique to the designer’s tastes and point of view.
When: This is the 2015 Challenge. It will run from January 2015 through December 31, 2015. You can join at any time during the year.
How Often: The Challenge format allows you to participate at whatever frequency works for your schedule. We like to suggest these options: 365 Days, 52 Weeks, 12 Months or 4 Seasons.
When I created the Slow Flowers book, I designed one bouquet per week for 52 weeks. But you might decide to create a monthly bouquet, or a seasonal arrangement – or, if you’re really dedicated – a daily design! The main thing is that you decide what works for you and get started.
Share! Post a photo of your arrangement to our Slow Flowers Challenge Pinterest Page. And if you share it elsewhere, please use #slowflowerschallenge or tag @myslowflowers link on Twitter so others can see what you’ve created.
Resources to Help & Inspire You:
Sign up here to Join and Receive a weekly email with season-perfect Slow Flowers Tips for your cutting garden and personal floral design studio. Each will include what to plant now, what to harvest now, how to find key resources like seeds, plants or cut ingredients, and essential tools/supplies for the Slow Flowers Challenge
