Nicolette and I have been up to our ears teaching at the Little Flower School. Prerequisites abound. Geometry, for example; obviously REQUIRED. But we’re not talking about your average textbook Trig, we require advanced spherical trigonometry; and if you don’t know what that is, let’s just say it’s of utmost importance in the fields of astronomy, earth-surface/orbital and space navigation and floral arranging.

Got your pencil?…and excuse me, but is that gum you’re chewing?!

The average floral arrangement consists of what we describe as a string of “moments,” (clusters of 3 or 5 flowers that relate tonally or structurally and serve as general focal points) suspended – if you will – in the spacetime-floral-continuum, and illustrated in diagram 1.1. These moments can be seen from any given angle, and change as the perspective of the viewer rotates around the axis given as the center of the arrangement and are subject to infinite interpretation depending on the history and aesthetic predispositions of the onlooker [ex. 1: Carnations may remind some of a wrist corsage given at a first dance, velvet lycra, and C&C Music Factory. ex. 2: Lilly of the valley elicits memories of grandmothers in 79% of American women].

Such moments in general follow an organizational process that can be categorized simply by a theory of Triangles (as illustrated in diagram 1.0, and not to be confused with the concept of “love triangle” or with Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love ), the eye generally is drawn first to the widest base angle which we’ll call a, travels up along the a-b axis, pauses at the highest point or gesture B (a flower that perhaps extends a bit beyond), and then glides down the b-c axis. As illustrated in diagram 1.2, the arc formed between the…You know what, PASS THAT NOTE UP HERE RIGHT NOW.

Summing up, we remember that flowers grouped in odd numbers are generally easier on the eye. If you’re purchasing stems at a flower shop, buy 3 or 5 stems of ranunculus. Two stems grouped together often resemble antenna, unless you cut one significantly shorter than the other, thus mimicking the way flowers tend to grow in nature.

Now go forth and triangulate!

Note: Study arrangement contained: French Anemones, Lichen covered branches, Ranunculus, Yellow Cypress, Dusty Miller, Pine cones (wired), Astrantia, Seeded Eucalyptus, and Ranunculus buds.

Well, hello.

Nice to see you again…Shall we?

Lately, when I’m not thinking of you, I’m been thinking about winter… about how it snuck up on me – suddenly I’m unconsciously reaching for a butternut squash at the supermarket, or holing up with 2 pints of B&J, a bottle of wine and astrology paraphernalia. I also have time lately to look around and consider my houseplants. Specifically, my recent obsession with collecting begonias.

Surely a professional astrologer could pinpoint the precise planetary angles in my star chart – a synergy that results in an acute tendency to collect and hoard. Let’s consider my history:

1985, first snowy day: I tell my sister (then aged 3) that winter is fast approaching and we need to gather all the nuts and berries in the yard or else we’re sure to starve. She cries; I console her with a mud pie.

1988 – 1990: I collect every piece of Easter and Halloween candy in a shoebox in the bottom of my closet. I strategically ration the candy – by only consuming small nibbles – so that it lasts all year round. These are the hardest days yet.

1991: I begin meeting with a stamp-collecting group in the back of an aging Roy Rogers restaurant. I wow the other members with my strong showing of the 1952 Helsinki Commemorative Olympic Stamps.

1993: A TJ Max opens in my town, and I begin pillaging the home section; spending my babysitting earnings ($3/hour, can you believe it!) to amass an unruly collection of god-awful candlesticks.

1995: An unfortunate collection of Absolut ads.

Presently: Managing an wayward collection of half eaten pieces of cheese, containers of olives, and…to the point – BEGONIAS.

Begonias come in infinite varieties. They stand up incredibly well as city house plants (requiring relatively low light, rather infrequent waterings (a once-a-week soaking will suffice in a pot with good drainage), and they are undeniably gorgeous.

Propagating is easy – snip a large healthy leaf and place it in a sunny window in a cup of water. When significant roots show up (2-3 weeks) you can pot a new one.

As a floral designer with a penchant for simple adornment of a few key flowers – the leaves are indispensable. I like to clip stems from my plants and mix them into arrangements. Given as a gift to someone armed with this information, such a bouquet can foster a new begonia grower. Now go forth and propagate!!

Great sites for begonias:
http://www.begonias.org/
http://www.peacetreefarm.com/
http://www.robsviolet.com/begonias.htm
http://boomanfloral.com/info_begoniaclassification.htm

CLICK HERE for the rest of Sarah’s post and more images of Begonia varieties after the jump!

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yesterday amy merrick and i hopped in a bright red zipcar and jetted across town looking for craft supplies to style a photoshoot for house beautiful magazine (click here for a sneak peek of the shoot). after visiting michael’s in queens and ikea, we headed to our ultimate destination: the new saipua in red hook.

i’m a massive, massive fan of saipua (and owners sarah and eric) and was so thrilled to not only visit the shop, but get to use the gorgeous new space as a backdrop for the shoot. after we finished the work part of the day i took a few minutes just to sit at gawk at the new space. designed by architect jeremy barbour of tacklebox, the new space feels like walking into the most beautiful weathered wooden box you’ve ever seen. every corner holds some beautiful surprise tucked into a wooden cubbyhole and the smell of saipua soap fills the air.

if you’re in the nyc area, the brand new shop will officially open its doors this saturday, august 22nd. if you are in town i highly suggest heading over and checking things out (and then grabbing a sweet treat at baked and something pretty from erie basin on the way out). until then, click here to check out the new images on sarah’s blog (and here to check out more photos on jeremy’s site) congrats to sarah and eric on their gorgeous new shop! [all images from saipua]

Hopefully someday I’ll be fortunate enough to have a real garden where I can spread my wings and grow 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, flowers like my friend Alice and black currants…but until that day comes my modest fertile crescent exists on a few cubic yards of Brooklyn sidewalk. The City has me in chains, and each spring I’m happy to throw it a few seeds and hope something grows up from its cracks.

This year I have some nice looking tomatoes. How are your tomatoes? Really? Wow. That big already huh…
OK FINE! I have a few problems – namely powdery mildew. It’s common enough. My plants look healthy with lots of blossoms and small fruits, but there’s a dusty white film in small circles on the leaves. Innocent enough looking – if left untreated the leaves will start to yellow and corrode…by the end of August the whole lot will be a crispy mess with stunted fruits. No victory in that garden.

I’ve mentioned home remedy’s for bug infestations here before – I really feel like most every plant ailment can be treated with simple concoctions of pantry items – especially if you’re growing on a smaller scale. I’m treating my mold with a homemade fungicide:

1 Tablespoon of baking soda
2 Tablespoons of canola oil
1 Teaspoon of liquid-soap like Dr. Bronners
1 Gallon of water

Hose off your infected plants first, then give a good spray. I spray the leaves and the soil. Always spray in the evening, after the sun has set so you’re treated leaves don’t “burn” in the heat of mid-day sun.

If you’re tomatoes have other ailments maybe we can sort out a good remedy for you in the comments…and also I want to mention something a bit more serious called Late Blight that seems to be affecting tomatoes in the North East. Characterized by “white, powdery spores; large olive green or brown spots on leaves; and brown or open lesions on the stems.” Read about it here.

Some powdery mildew on leaves

Healthy rooftop tomatoes

Advanced mildew

Come off it already, leaf-wrapping clear cylindrical vases was so 2008. Peeps now want to keep it simple…down to earth.

When a fashionable couple recently asked me to tie their wedding flowers with Raffia*…I was like WHOA. Can we break into the world of raffia, and yet avoid the painfully bleak world of sunflowers, blue ducks, country crafts and all else that is associated with 1989? The answer is yes!

Raffia is simple. It is a fiber taken from the underside of the African Raffia Palm tree leaf. Used in flower arrangements it feels natural in way that ribbon could never. It’s understated and fresh feeling to me – it matches all flowers. It eliminates the painful debate over ribbon. It’s quick to biodegrade… not that on your wedding day you need worry about the ecological impact of your bouquet, but if you were looking for a solution to tying up your tomatoes or Clematis, raffia would be perfect. Easily thrown into the compost** pile at the end of the fall…

*My boyfriend really wants me to tell you that Raffia was invented by Raffi the popular children’s entertainer. He may or may not have already added a note to Wikipedia about this. It is FALSE.

**Did you know you can compost at the Added Value Farm in Red Hook? I do, and LOVE it. For more info, call 718-855-5531

CLICK HERE for 6 more images after the jump!

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Every year my friends and I say something stupid like “this is going to be the BEST summer ever!” and then high five, maybe pull out a stick of Juicy Fruit and run through a fire hydrant or something. Every year except this year. Some packed up and left town. They adopted pets. They’re fasting.

Like clockwork, on the first of July I sit down with my favorite pair of jeans. We have a heart to heart, and then I carelessly snip them into shorts. Regret sets in 20 minutes later…”What have I DONE?!”

I sit inside on my day off and stare at the dog listening to Arthur Russell, postulating on gay singers who sing about girls. In a state of confusion I call some of my brides to see if they want to hang out. “We need to discuss boutonnieres! Wanna meet up for a drink? What are you going to wear?” What little professional edge I had just fizzled.

Lately I’ve been on the wedding chain gang. (Which is not a bad place to be as a florist; ye shall make hay while the sun shineth so to speak.) But I’m about to get off – the heat of summer deters many brides. With my extra time I’ve been able to fully appreciate some of summer’s first flowers. My mother’s garden is a racket of daylilies, foxglove and yarrow. Zinnias are starting to show up at the farmer’s market. Amaranthus, sea holly, asclepius, summertime hydrangea line the street in the flower district. Some of these make it into our designs at work, some are just admired in passing.

We all talk a lot lately about Seasonality in reference to food and flowers. Many of my clients are concerned with things being seasonal for 2 reasons: they want to be eco-friendly with their flower budgets, and they want to keep those budgets low. Our flower world is far from seasonal. Yes, we have peonies in spring, dahlias in summer, hydrangea in fall. But we also have roses, freesia, tulips, orchids, stock, snapdragons, and lilies year-round. To make a flower arrangement in February seasonally we would be limited to evergreens and maybe a locally grown anemone.

To complicate things even more, consider a popular flower like the peony. We’re about done with peonies on the East Coast this week, the last coming in from Vermont, and the north. But they’re still available from Holland, and will be for another 2 weeks. In mid winter we’ll get 6 weeks of peonies from New Zealand. Expensive and somewhat second rate, these peonies bear a hefty carbon footprint. Another example is the Ranunculus, a greenhouse flower that has enjoyed the spotlight for the last few years. Ranuncula are typically eclipsed by May due to warmer temperatures. Now we get them through the summer grown in the Kenyan highlands. Despite the long travel – (most African flowers make a pit stop in Holland and are sold through the international flower market in Aalsmeer before landing in New York) – these flowers hover at the same price regardless of their origin. Your Jersey Ranuncula in April is the same price as the Jet-Set Kenyan in July. Go figure. It makes the conversation about Seasonality ever more complicated. You don’t always save money when you ask for seasonal flowers.

My dilemma is this: I like to use a big mix of different flowers. Always. July, November, March. So often I sacrifice my ethos and snag the Japanese clematis because they are so damn beautiful, and at the end of the day, it’s my job to make things beautiful. But I would like to do my job in a greener way.

And that champange wasn’t local either BTW…

This week I thought we could focus on how to best manage your wedding flower table arrangements. Table decor is often the most expensive part of wedding floral budget, and in truth, you can save a lot of money by taking this beast on yourself….with a few simple guidelines.

FACT: your bridesmaids most likely don’t know how to arrange flowers
FACT: your bridesmaids probably would rather drink mimosas and fret over which groomsman they’ll be paired up with walking down the aisle
FACT: you’re not going to have time to hand-select flowers at the farmers market on the day of your wedding. really. you. will. not.

In light of these facts, if you are stuck on the idea of handling the flowers for your wedding yourself, you need to follow the two rules of DIY wedding floral decor: 1 – KEEP IT SIMPLE. 2 – CHOOSE ONE FLOWER. Believe me when I say these 2 rules makes the day of (or the day-before) prep work completely manageable.

To showcase these rules, my assistants Amy and Amanda helped to put together 2 different table scenarios. In the first we uses Delphinium, a gorgeous blue or lavender flower available locally in most areas of the US. In the second, we used Mountain Laurel, a woody-stemmed bush also available in most zones. Both of these flowers are available in June.

With simple flower arrangements it’s nice to embellish the table in other ways. Amy, a craft maven in her own right, brought two bolts of different cotton fabric which she fashioned into runners that complemented the colors of the Mountain Laurel and Delphinium. For the first table, we arranged the delphinium in some simple pint mason jars and old apothecary bottles. Any loyal, intoxicated bridesmaid can do this. Runner goes down, extra bits of delphinium are tied around the napkins with the place cards (printed on the computer). Some small glass bird ornaments are clipped right into the flowers. Now you’ve got a coordinated mess folks. And…onto the next.

With the Mountain Laurel table we used a pink runner on a muslin table cloth. The vases we picked up at Ikea for $1.99 a piece. If you’re setting long tables, plan to have one vase for every 3-4 people. If you’re using rounds, place 3 or 5 (always odd numbers with flowers) in the center of each table.

For the table numbers and place cards Amy played around with vintage postcards. Names can be hand-written on brown craft paper and just slipped under some twine that ties it all up with the napkin.

Lastly, I always stress the votives. The photos don’t do them justice, but you know they go a long way for ambiance at an evening wedding. You’ll want to have one votive for each guest.

Does this help, or am I leaving pertinent details out? Hit me up with questions in the comments, and I’ll do my best with answering. After I’m done with this weekend’s weddings, and have had my own mimosa of course.

PEONIES PART THREE; behind the scenes wedding weekend

After having recovered from a month of sickness in our house, we jumped into another June wedding weekend in our new (unfinished) space. I have two amazing floral assistants, one of whom always brings homemade baked goods. [This week was lemon poppyseed cupcakes.]

Everyone should really have the chance to arrange flowers in a construction zone. At our new space we have a bid dumpster, which if you have a flowershop is incredibly exciting. I posed on top of it. With the brides bouquet.

The bigger of the two weddings on Saturday was up at Wave Hill, a bucolic scene lush with blooming viburnum, roses, summer hydrangea…when you work there you get strict rules about not cutting stems from the premises. Apparently there are no rules about florists using the golf carts, as my assistant found out. When she announced that she had permission to use it I had a quiet internal meltdown. “but I want TO DRIVE THE GOLF CART! ”

The bride had excellent taste, and matched some of the glassware on the tables to the eggplant colors in the centerpieces. A little visual tie-in like this goes a long way. We made all the centerpieces a bit different.

I like a whole lot of texture with a big mix of flowers. Especially this time of year. This way it’s like a big garden distilled into a 6×6″ clear glass cylinder in the middle of your table! Guests talk about what flowers they recognize, what they have grown themselves. You got some pitcher plants in there, some smoke bush…obviously peonies…ladies mantle, blueberry, hydrangea, button mums, lisianthus, purple basil, coxcomb, pulsitilla, princess roses, black beauty roses, scabiosa pods, nigella and more…next week I’m going to come at you with some tips for doing your own wedding flowers…till then!

When you wake up with the flu during wedding season and suddenly have to move your shop into a warehouse that is flooded, its not the best time to wax poetic on peonies. That being said, I give you these pretty pictures and a quick tip on house plants…

A QUICK TIP ON HOUSE PLANTS: Spring time in the city means that some of you with house plants will find yourself with an infestation of mites, aphids, or other life-sucking critters. These pests can wipe out a household of plants in a matter of weeks. They come from outside, through open windows (especially in the city) and sneak in on new plants you bring home. The first symptoms of an infestation looks like brown dying foliage close to the bottom of the plant. When you water you may see some flying up and around like tiny fruit flies. Here’s what you need to do to eradicate them:

Isolate infested plants! Put them far away from untouched plants. On a fire escape, in the hallway, outside, in a closet. The farther away the better. It’s going to be easier to eradicate bugs from one plant rather than 10 plants.

Keep you’re plants as dry as they will tolerate. Most houseplants need water only once a week, With the exception of most ferns, jasmine, etc…bugs thrive in moist environments.

Fill a spray bottle with water and about 1 tablespoon of joy or other dish soap. Spray the infected plant with this mixture near the roots, over the surface of the soil, and on any leaves that seem to be harboring critters. Repeat this every 3-4 days. Paying close attention to how the pests are responding to this. -Sarah

[editor's note: check out the awesome progress on the new saipua shop right here! i can't wait to see it all finished...]

Peony: Take 1

You say Peony, I say Paeony – either way – the Greek myth goes down like this:
Asclepius was the god of healing and medicine. Peaon was his wingman. Peaon got so talented that Asclepius got all jealous. To save Peaon from Asclepius’ wrath, Zeus turned him into a flower; the Peony. Asclepius later got caught raising folks from the dead in exchange for gold. Zeus struck him down with a lightning bolt. I’m not sure who was left to do the healing after that.

Anyway now is the season for these showstoppers. We can get peonies year-round – flown in from New Zealand and Holland – but they’re not the same. Not as full, not as fragrant.

Two weeks ago the really good peonies starting showing. Varieties? Bowl of Cream, Big Ben, Crinkled Linens, Charles Burgess…shall I go on? Festiva Maxima, Felix Krause, Paula Fey, Pillow Talk. The price deflates this time of year from upwards of $15 a stem down to $6 or 7. You don’t need a lot. One or two. Unless you’re trying to appeal to an angry girlfriend (10 full-blown stems packs a wallop and makes a huge bouquet worth drooling over). Peonies are Chuck Bass’s go-to flower for when he’s told Blair Waldorf he doesn’t love her, when in fact he really does and decides to tell her he’s had a change of heart. (She never accepts.) Incidentally, a bouquet of peonies also makes for a good “hit-him-over-the-head” scenario, due to their relative lightness and lack of thorns. Petals slowly trickle out of freeze-frame as music gently rises.

But you’re not the type for drama like that, and probably just want something pretty for your table. Put some sprite or sugar in the water to feed the cut stems.

Peonies grow well in most temperate zones. The best site I’ve found for purchasing them (as roots, not plants) is Song Sparrow. There’s also a wealth of information on the Garden Muse’s blog here.