Late Fall Wedding with Wendy Lea

I had the pleasure of helping my friend Wendy Lea do a wedding the last weekend of November. She is a real pro, and I learned a whole lot working with her.The colors were orange, aubergine and gray, so we used gerbera daisies, orange melva roses, brandy wine roses, purple spray roses, seeded eucalyptus, hydrangea and lots of little accents. My favorite and the most unusual flower that we used was the Orange Chinese Lantern Lillie (Sandersonia, bellow).

I have been living near Santa Cruz, CA which is a short ride to Watsonville, where many of the  flowers growers and wholesale flower providers are located. We went to Paja Rosa, one of the last large scale rose growers in the area and Kitayama Brothers who specialize in lilies (Orientals and Asiatics), but sell tons of other wholesale flowers all over the US.

The wedding was for an older couple, so there was not a lot of fuss or last minute freak outs. 

    

                                                                            It was such a pleasure to see the brides face light up when she saw the flowers.

 I am definitely getting hooked on doing flowers for wedding, 

its very rewarding. 

Early Spring In California

I spent some time with my friend Carra, on the Everett Family Farm in Soquel, CA this weekend.  She grows a variety of cut flowers and now is the time for hardy bulbs with delicate flowers like Narcissus and Tulips.

 We endured 10 inches of rain last week, so the formerly dry, dusty landscape has become lush with thick green grass and early blooming flowers are plentiful. I am still getting to know this area of the country and getting a chance to get out and dig in the dirt, is the best possible way to know a place.
And boy did we dig, 100 feet about 2 ft deep to lay down gopher wire, to protect these beautiful French Tulips!

The Everett Farm is an all organic “incubator” farm. So they have several different people who farm on their land, take care of goats and chickens, etc. it is called an incubator farm, for young farmers starting out.

Flowers of India

 It is so amazing to see piles and piles of garlands. The thing I absolutely love about India is that flowers are just as important as food, water, and fire. These things are offered back to the God’s everyday as a way of devotion

 I had a chance to help make garlands with the ladies in Mayapur, they have at least a dozen large 6 ft  golden deities (statues of various gods) and each one gets a fresh garland to wear everyday. One day I saw them made entirely of Dahlias.

Many nights in Vrindaban we went temple hopping, running around to these tiny ancient temples to get a final glimpse of a favorite deity  By the end of the night we would be piled high with garlands around our own necks. There is really nothing like it, a flower hug, of slight weight and smell, it made me deliriously happy.

 And then the festivals….  flower petals to throw, garlands adorning everything, patterns, colors, intricacies. It is unreal.

Wildflower Gazing

We have spent about a week traveling from Omaha, Nebraska to Cheyanne, Wyoming and now to Estes Park, Colorado. There have been so many new flowers to look at and try to identify. 

It's so great to be on the west coast! I have arrived!

From Tennessee with love

 I enjoy making boutonnieres, there like a vignette, a quick impression of place.

 These are a mix of cornflowers, juniper berries, variegated thyme, and other little bits of whatnot.

The globe amaranth, and cornflowers came from Tennessee Tech University's organic farm (Shipley Farm),  where I lived for the last 3 and a half years while studying fine arts and horticulture. They have been growing cut flowers for the fall floral design class the past couple years. Two years ago I assisted Dr. Airhart with the class, it was such a great experience! Processing hundreds of roses all day made me realize, I really love flowers and this is what I want to do for a career. The roses and other imported flowers were donated by the local wholesaler, whatever they would be throwing away for the week. Some weeks they didn't have much, so I would drive around and look for interesting foliage and wildflowers. That got me into the habit of always having scissors in my car, and they come in really handy when you see some great hydrangea! I feel that using flowers and foliage fresh from where it was grown has a certain essence of place to it. They just feel right. 

The centerpiece (above) I created while working at DelMonaco Winery, for a food and wine pairing.  It was rewarding working at the winery, where I helped with a lot of events and weddings. It is a small family owned business, where I ended up doing a little bit of everything: picking grapes, bottling wine, decorations for events and holidays, wine tastings, graphic design, and website maintenance. It was cool to have a hand in the whole process of a business and to be part of a team. 

The bouquet (below) was made with some lovely pastel gladiolas, from Shipley Farms. I pulled the nicest flowers off of a few different stems, and wired each one. It took a little while, but the result was worth it, and I do kinda enjoy repetitive tasks :)

Passion Flowering

 Yay! I've finally started a blog! Thanks for reading, I plan to share my experiences with one of my favorite things ~ flowers!

I'm going to start a career in the floral industry so I wanted to use the blog format as a working resume. I will be sharing arrangements and photos from the last year or so, and also what I'm working on at the moment. My boyfriend, Jon, and I are getting ready to move to the West Coast very soon and we will be taking an epic road trip adventure to get there. So there will be some wildflower/travel pics to come.

This arrangement uses passionflower vine, purple cone flower, coleus, queen anne's lace, 

ox-eye daisy, rudbeckia, and brown-eyed susan.

 One of my very favorite things, is going hiking/exploring and collecting wildflowers on the way. It helps that Jon is a naturalist and he knows the name of most every plant and whether or not they should be picked. I would never pick a rare flower or from protected areas, and actually, I mostly like collecting from roadside and weedy areas. You would be surprised by the variety of blooms and foliage you can find right around your own neighborhood! I especially love using common foliage as filler. The passion flower vine is my new favorite and it's the Tennessee state wildflower. The tendriled ends are so delicately trailing and it lasts a very long time. I still have it in a vase from almost 3 weeks ago!