Peony Cloud

For the past couple of days, I have found myself swimming in a sea of peonies.  I can't seem to stay away from them, particularly the pink ones with its translucent petals that glow with hints of yellow sunshine and its delightful fragrance.  I wish peony season could last forever.  

The ones featured here are from France and I can't wait to get my hands on local varieties.  

Wrapped and ready to be delivered to some lucky individuals.
So pretty!

Just Can't Get Enough

This morning started pretty rough with a wrong number call at 5:30am.  I hate those!  I only wanted 30 more minutes of sleep before heading to the flower market.

But by 8:00am, a good friend sweetened up my morning with some of the prettiest local clematis.  It was a complete surprise and the perfect companion to my lilacs from yesterday.

BTW, I just can't get enough of this color palette and my hurricane / vase from West Elm.

local lilacs and clematis


Flower Class -- Yay!



Earlier in March, I signed up for a flower arranging class by Nicolette Owen.  The class was part of a book release for "Bringing Nature Home" which Nicolette collaborated with Ngoc Minh Ngo, both photographer and author of said book.  Haven't had an opportunity to read, but am completely excited:  it's about flowers and stunning photography of flowers; it possibly can't get better in my mind!  Plus, I've been a long admirer of Nicolette's work.  

Here's the book!  I love, love this arrangement -- so inspiring!

Class was today and held in a gorgeous nook at West Elm on the Upper West Side.  Nicolette gave a brief demonstration of her technique which is loose yet still very abundant.  

Pre-class photo
How awesome is this space?  And the flowers!
So many varieties

My station.  The clippers are so cute and vase to add to my collection.
The vase has a nice modern vintage vibe going.

I went quickly to work after Nicolette gave us a demonstration:  how to build a foundation using woody stems, how to add the showy flowers and the gesture flowers.  Her approach is so natural and relaxed.

There were so many flowers at my disposal and color combinations as well:  purples, peaches and yellows, apricots and pinks or apricots and lemon -- I could go on and on.  I decided that since I couldn't decide, I'd find a way to use them all.

Et voila!  Whoever said "less is more" is crazy.


Summer Cutting Garden -- Phase 3

Pete and I have reached the midway point of our summer cutting garden project, the raised garden beds.  Pete's parents generously allowed us to borrow the sunniest part of their field for our experiment.  It was a fun weekend: our families generously pitched in and got dirty with us; the weather cooperated, albeit a bit windy and overcast at times; and execution went as planned.  In hindsight, building six beds was quite ambitious.  A family friend remarked, after hearing of our plans and seeing pictures, "this is no joke".  Without skipping a beat, Pete's dad sarcastically responded "with Botha, nothing is a joke".  What can I say?  I dream big.

It starts with black gold:  loam and compost mix.
8 cubic yards trucked in on Thursday morning from Martin's Farm.

No pics on the box-making process, but it was a straightforward process.  We put two 2'x8'x12" and two 2'x4'x12" joined simply by butting them together.  The beds were reinforced with 4"x4" posts in each corner.

Once the boxes were made, we had a long debate about placement.  

My dad surveying the line-up.

The crew (including me) outlined the boxes, cut away the sod and tilled and leveled the land beneath.

Pete's dad removing sod.
Pete and the pitchfork.
Nathan (9) took turns on the pitchfork.
Me.
Always time for a laugh.
We used these babies to move soil to the beds.
The beds were mostly filled by Saturday evening.
After Easter brunch, we topped off the beds with more soil.
Leftover soil, but it will not be wasted.
Found in this the field.
Perhaps we could rehab and use on our future farm *wink*....
Finito!
What a weekend!
 One day to gather and purchase materials.
Two and a half days of assembling, digging, tilling, leveling, shoveling, raking and more leveling.

Our next steps are to install drip irrigation and plant.  It's a bit too cold to start planting most of the flowers except for the sweet peas and anemones.  

Summer Cutting Garden -- Phase 2

As noted in my last post, Pete and I headed back to Boston to care for our seedlings.  We figured two weeks was enough time to start transplanting into larger soil blocks.  This wasn't so much a hunch on our part, but through Facetime with my plants -- technology can be a wonderful thing.

Here is me contemplating the work ahead of us.  Just kidding.  More like me drinking coffee while Pete snapped away.

Coffee is not the single origin stuff that Pete's gotten me used to, but I'm loving the Starbucks blonde roast.

In my short experience, seeds want to grow and grow fast.  But some seeds can be completely temperamental, such as the sweet peas not liking super moist conditions and thereby got moldy.  Alas, must re-start the sweet peas by sowing directly into the raised beds.

My babies...

Zinnias in the front and sweet peas in the back
Sweet peas of what didn't turn moldy
Assorted sprouts of coleus, gomphrena, scabiosa, poppies and verbena
Dad and I getting the soil ready for block-making
Blocking
Tray full of blocks ready for the smaller blocks

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Went up to Boston this weekend to visit my seedlings, which I'll cover in my next post.  My sister's birthday is upcoming and I won't be around to celebrate with her.  She is an over-the-top flower lover like me, so this Saturday was flowers my treat.  At the Boston market, I came across some andromeda (a.k.a. lily of the valley bush) and instantly fell in love with its pearly, drippy bells.  We decided to work with two color palettes using the andromeda:  one that was muted and the other more vibrant.

The muted - very dusty and romantic...





The vibrant...





Autumn and Winter Redux - Part 1

It was a busy autumn and winter at Busy B -- well at least busy with practice arrangements, combining flowers, working with a multitude of color palettes and such.  

One of my favorite weekend activities is to comb the flower markets, both in New York and Boston to peruse the seasonal offerings.  In my opinion, March is probably the best month for flowers.  It has the sweetest and wide-ranging selection from sweet peas (of course), anemones, lush ranunculus, poppies, hellebores, tree peonies, peonies and hydrangeas.  Roses and garden roses are readily available throughout the year, but their effect on me is truly season-less.

March is only missing the dahlias and clematis, which are just starting to come in.

"Coffee Break" roses, Scented Geranium and Orange Ranunculus 
Simple Arrangement of Rococco Tulips


Bird Eye's View of the Rococco Tulips
Hand Tied Bouquet of "Purple Haze" Roses, "Mamy Blue" Roses, lisianthus, "White Majolika" spray roses, green hypercurium berries and white agapanthus
"Sarah" roses, "Ritz" roses, veronica, scabiosa pods, white ranunculus, astrantia, thistle, blue muscari, silver brunia, dusty miller and English ivy





Oh Heavenly Sweet Pea!

Where have you been all my life, sweet pea?  I will fervently admit that I have been and continue to be obsessed with the Japanese sweet pea this winter, spring and until it is sadly over (*tear) -- by obsessed, I mean like think and dream of its ruffled petals and smell its intoxicating scent of orange blossom and honey.  I know; it's all very unhealthy.  

Pete shakes his head every time I giddily, and greedily, bring a bunch home.  I planted some hundred or so seeds this weekend and hope that we'll be soon waist deep in sweet pea vines (Pete, of course, shares the same sentiment).  I'm not completely delusional; it's highly unlikely that mine will be anywhere close to the Japanese varieties.  Some may curse me, but I'm keeping my fingers cross for a cool spring and summer.  And if they don't grow well this year, then damnit, next year!





Emma's First Birthday

Emma turned 1 this weekend

Medley of Peonies, Sweet Peas, Ranunculus, Libretto Parrot Tulips and Hydrangea
Vignette of the Birthday Decor
I later added some leftover Purple Haze roses that rounded out the arrangement so nicely.


While the seeds were happily germinating in a dark warm area of our basement, the rest of my parents' home was joyously filled with family and guests celebrating my cousin, Emma's, first birthday.  When Emma's mom asked my sister and me to put something sweetly pink and green for Emma's party, we jumped at the chance.  

Who knew that our arrangements would match the tablecloth -- neither were certainly planned.

P.S. the seeds sprouted!  Pics to come (well, as soon as I make my way back to MA).


Summer Cutting Garden -- Phase 1

Germination Soil Mix

Forming Soil into Block Form
Soil Blocks
Dad Pressing Soil Blocks onto Tray
Me Making Soil Blocks
Germination Seed Layout by Tray
Pete Seeding our Zinnia Tray

Pete and I are pursuing a somewhat ambitious project of starting a cutting garden in two parts of MA (one right outside Boston and the other in Western MA).  Ambitious because we live in NYC and will be spending many weekends commuting to and fro to care for our garden.

Phase I of the project involves seed germination in my parents' basement.  We made soil blocks -- never done so before but read somewhere that blocks were a better way to germinate and transplant.  I'm hoping to include some of these blossoms in this summer's arrangements.

We made some messy blocks at first (soil was too wet) and despite my father's moaning, we endured and made, in my opinion, some pretty fine blocks.  Now come the seeds:  zinnias, sweetpeas, scabiosas, verbena...1,200 blocks filled with seeds.  Not sure how the sweetpeas will tolerate a New England spring, but I'm hopeful (I'm a shameless optimist).  With persistent watering and a heated germination mat (I'm reluctantly leaving this to my father's care), these babies will sprout and Pete and I will have some mega planting to do in April!

First Post -- Wow!


Bouquet of Queensland Fringed Tulips, Darcey Garden Roses, Spray Roses, Blush Anemones, Japanese Sweet Peas, Ranunculus, Deep Purple Calla Lilies and Scented Geranium Leaves

Wrapped up for a Birthday

Ready for Delivery!


I love flowers and photography.  And I finally put together this blog to share my work. 
Flowers are spray roses, Darcey garden roses, Queensland fringed tulips and pink tulips, French anemones, deep purple (near black) calla lilies, Japanese sweet peas, ranunculus (from NJ!!!) and scented geranium leaves.  And, yes, this was a birthday present....