Dahlias Open the Mind's Eye

For dahlia lovers everywhere and in particular for anyone planning late summer nuptials on the east coast, this engaging and informative article in September’s Down East Magazine about Endless Summer Flower Farm in Camden, Maine, will spark keen interest. Even if you never gave dahlias more than a half glance before now, writer Rebecca Martin Evarts’s descriptions of dahlias, with their ancient Aztec origins (as a wanton weed) and saucy contemporary presence will surely enchant and tempt. Here’s a glimpse into dahlia Eden, the lovely people who make it happen year after year, and the surest and best source of fresh, local dahlias Down East.

I first met the Clarks and walked around Endless Summer Flower Farm early last summer, when we stopped by to see what they could promise us in the way of white dahlias for a mid-September wedding at the Camden Yacht Club. We found, among other charming sights, their granddaughter waltzing down the aisles between nodding stems just coming into blossom. We found, too, that given advance warning, the Clarks deliver beautifully on their promises. They keep careful track of their orders and are wonderful to deal with… forthright about the vagaries of the weather, and utterly reliable. It’s always inspiring to visit people so engaged, if not obsessed, in creative endeavors.

And then, the way the Clarks talk about the blooms, it’s as if Karma Carona and Bodacious belonged in the family. The fact that they have to dig up the tubers before winter, store in their basement, and replant every spring makes the garden seem that much more theatrical (with stage hands at work shifting the scene with the turning of the seasons). Here surely is a late summer idyll to prize, even if dahlias sit low on your list of favorite flowers. It’s refreshing, too, to open a window on stale preconceptions, proving once again Emerson’s famous line about consistency being “the hobgoblin of little minds.” I’ve never been crazy for dahlias, nor given them much thought before I got into flower design, but to see their jubilant heads dancing in the summer air, and their neatly fluted and folded petals, is to fall in love with this flower of such exquisite texture, color, and variety.

Art in Bloom and Sensibilities Aflame

The day is nearly upon us. Art in Bloom comes to the MFA this weekend. It starts early Friday morning when designers are given free parking and approximately three hours to put together their arrangements throughout the museum exhibition halls and byways. They will bring vases, blooms, stones, moss, grasses, ferns, leaves, twigs, and branches. They will spread drop cloths under their vases, and set to work rapidly -- composure mingled with suspense -- using scissors, knives, watering jugs, and their hands to turn what may look like a grab bag of random organic things into coherent, imaginative designs that complement the artwork and spaces.

We're talking ephemeral public art, here. It may not last more than a few days, but as surely as the paintings, sculptures, and decorative furnishings bring visual pleasure to all gallery goers, this burst of fresh color, texture, and inspired design will nourish the souls of passers by and offer a sense of hope and joie de vivre -- all the sharper, perhaps, for the accompanying awareness that flowers fade and a wind ruffles the wild grasses in fields and meadow.

It will be a lavish display for sure, and some may decry the expense in hard times. But "reason not the need" as Shakespeare said, and enjoy the riches of a precious moment.

Ambivalence - Hands-on or hands off flower design?

A friend saved Stemming the cost of wedding flowers (from The Boston Globe, March 26) for me. I have to admit I read it with mixed feelings. First, I am inspired brides and their friends are plunging into the fray to learn how to make bouquets, corsages, and centerpieces. It speaks to the renewal of the hands-on movement sparked by the world's economic gyrations. We all need to think and act differently - to start growing our own veggies, to shop with an eye to local, seasonal flowers as well as food, and to find our own way through the apparent downfall of much of corporate America. But brides designing their wedding flowers on the "day of" just strikes me as a bit precarious.

In the five years since I started Flourish, brides have repeatedly told me (with a mixture of shock and awe in their voices) my prices are reasonable. I didn't mean it that way! I am working for a living, after all. But it seems most flower designers simply charge a lot more. There are good reasons, too, that go beyond the price of blooms. A lot of time, thought, and mileage go into flower shopping, preparation, design, delivery and setup. Add to that the notion that the wedding industry seemed to be on an endlessly spiraling stairway to heaven - not so many years ago, The New York Times reported that the average wedding cost well over $100,000 - and of course it made sense to ride on up the escalator.

When I price out a wedding flower proposal (with everything itemized so a couple can see where their money goes and pick and choose how they want to spend it), I make sure I feel amply rewarded for my work. At the same time, I like to think couples may be getting a (slight) benefit (because I know how the cost goes zinging up for no apparent reason) and with luck having a good time. I know their day will be beautiful, full of fresh flowers imaginatively designed, that the service I offer is uniquely personal and impeccable, and that at the end of that glorious day, they will be well-pleased.

So, yes, I write with a divided heart. Of course I want to democratize the world of flower design. Of courses it's great brides and their friends are learning to shop for flowers, prep, and design them. I'm happy people are applying their hands and brains to this ancient art. What could be more satisfying than designing the flowers for your wedding day? At the same time, I'm feeling a thread of trepidation, and a degree of pride and what to call it? Snobbery? Ownership? It has taken me quite a few years to gain the skills of this particular trade, and I'm still learning. Successful flower design takes time and trial - flowers are high maintenance creatures: fickle, fussy, and fragile. You have to treat them with care, and learn their ways. If a bride can do that, as well as tend to all the details of her day, terrific! If not, please, I'd love to help you out!

Thinking Ahead to Art in Bloom at the MFA

(Flowers by the MFA staff on a Friday in January.)

Here's the assignment: Design a knockout vase arrangement -- one, two, or three -- to suit the new Sharf Visitor Center at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. What's the occasion? The MFA's Art in Bloom weekend, April 24 to 26, 2009. The space is long, low, and sleek. The colors off whites and greys. The lines boxy and sleek - sans clutter and surface decor, with the addition of massive circular columns behind and in front of the information desk.


Should the design follow the spare, linear qualities of the space, or break out with an organic burst of cherry blossoms, say, or magnolia? Should the vase itself be dark like the ones pictured above, and have intrinsic drama, or should it seem to disappear? Those child-sized vases in John Singer Sargent's painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) came to mind. Would something Asian and ornate add a delicious counterpoint to the clean lines of this 21st century design? It might, but practicality argues against. A tall clear glass cylinder, on the other hand, reasonably priced and elegant, would echo the columns. If filled with river rock, with flower petals scattered against the glass, it might harmonize with the ambiance, and stir thoughts of a peaceful garden.

Perhaps it comes down simply to what does the eye crave and the soul want from flowers? How to make a lasting statement in a space that argues against fuss? Or is that just what's needed? An architect I know says, yes, bring on the color and the intricacy. As yet, I have no solutions, only a vision slowly taking shape.

Learning to Love Glads

I hate to say it but gladiolas just did not cut it with me until recently. They reminded me of funerals – not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with such occasions; we’ll all have one – but they cast a slur on gladiolas which made the flower seem dower and unapproachable. Such a long term association comes from my childhood exposure to glads (as my mother called them), when in dusty salmon or dirty white, only, they were to be seen lolling about in the background of the florists’ display windows on Madison Avenue, hovering like an uninvited guest.

But recently, my heart turned a corner with respect to gladiolas. I started to notice their dazzling colors (and sometimes duotones) at the Boston Flower Exchange. . No other flower outside of the rose comes in as many shades and hues: from soft mauve and scarlet to rust and claret to pale pink to dark pink to a pink-fringed white, to juicy orange, lemon, and lime. Clear, vivid, and seductive Given their palette and glorious stature, I started using gladiolas in designs destined for anything but a funeral parlor.

No longer merely the foil for other flowers, the gladiola is a stunner in its own right. You can use individual blossoms in low centerpieces, boutonnières, or corsages, or cut the stalks shorter to give the gladiolas more heft and presence in a contemporary glass or ceramic vase. A tall vase filled with gladiolas can look downright contemporary.

What changed my mind? A with-it young woman from Los Angeles who called to ask for seventy bright red gladiolas for her mother’s seventieth birthday, delivered in style. What fun I had that otherwise dreary mid-winter afternoon tying up long handsome bundles of gladiolas in cello with chartreuse ribbon.

So now I have a different take on that quintessentially 1950s flower. Let me tell you why: They have drama, they have scale; they have longevity and affordability on their side. Two dozen glads fanning out horizontally and in an upward spread can transform a space.