Hot Tamale!

The first weekend in August brings the Berkshire Botanical Garden Flower Show.  The Garden hums with exhibitors, judges and visitors.  "Garden on Fire" is the BBG's theme this summer as well as the theme of the design classes in "The Grow Show".

In design, my favorite class was called "Hot Tamale!" a design in a niche.

This artistic design was reminiscent of Flemish master paintings with the great variety of vegetables including top Egyptian walking onions (little purple clusters on long stems).

Precise symmetry is not easy using vegetables!

These delicate dainty vegetables are in perfect scale and skillfully arranged as they run up and down the design.

Many were grown by the exhibitor.  Notice the flower made from a tomatillo upper right.

Using a combination of garden flowers including zinnias and onions to form a bouquet, the designer cleverly linked it to glass container.  Also more use of walking onions with their clusters are on the top.

Colorful peppers were wired with gold (aluminium) wire to form an undulating chain inside the vase.

Matte black forms a dramatic backdrop for this bold design sitting on a upside down glass container.

This designer was the only one to incorporate tamales into the design.  Notice, also, the draped cornsilk peeking out from the right.  Both added great textural contrast to the smooth peppers.

As befits an August show, growers brought vegetables in the horticulture classes.  This artfully arranged, bounteous basket won Horticulture Best In Show.

Are you hungry?  Cheers!

When pot meets fleur

As fans of Nancy Meyer’s movie "The Holiday" know, a script writer’s ‘meet cute’ is when an unusual situation throws two people together who ordinarily might not meet. 

Our horticultural ‘meet cute’ pairs rooted plants, in or out of their pots, together with cut flowers in one arrangement.  This kind of arrangement can last a long time, with occasional changes of the cut flowers.  Of course, the trick is regularly watering the plants!

These potted plants come from the supermarket, the nursery and the farm stand.  From back clockwise,  purple leaf Sedum, ivy, maidenhair fern and ornamental purple peppers. 

The maidenhair fern has been taken out of its pot and put in a plastic bag with the soil level left open for watering.  Do provide some protection from overwatering leaks in the form of baggies over the pots. 

Choose a large container.  This wooden box is 12” deep so almost everyplant needs something to perch on.  A shallower basket, bowl or box would not require so many extra mechanics! 

Clockwise, a Tupperware cylinder with a pin holder,  oasis, a plastic container upside down and piece of dry oasis.

Later I added more pieces of Styrofoam and  two water filled jars.





This is an ad hoc kind of presentation - anything can be used as the 'container'.  The new Crate & Barrel catalogue has lots of interesting baskets that would suit this.  Salad bowls or planters or window boxes would be fine.  If the container isn't as deep as the one above, you avoid having to fiddle with all the hidden pieces.

However, my box = my fiddling.  Looking at it from the rear, the plants are lined up with the container of water (with one gladiola stem) behind them.

Add the gladiola stems in the pin holder in the container plus any other flowers in the oasis.  In between the plants and the cut materials, put  moss or other filler to hid gaps and all the plastic and the pots.

Here you are looking at the front of the box and can see the entire 'back' row of the box, styrofoam plants, jars of cut stems and moss hiding containers.

 I decided I didn't like the messy thread-like brown eucalyptus in the right front of the box (first picture) and substituted a creeping fig plant from the supermarket.  In doing so I changed the order of the plants.

Here is the pot et fleur with the changes to the group of materials.  What was missing (picture one) is a cohesion of all the different colors and textures into one unit.  This is a little better.   Have fun with this!

Cheers!

Two-dish design

Dishing it out….

Last Friday at the Berkshire Botanical Garden (www.berkshirebotanical.org), I taught a class called “Cutting Edge Design: Not your mother’s flower arrangements”.  We began with a brief power point on the exciting new arrangements that take on the aspect of organic sculptures.  Then we got down to the business of making a two-dish design.

The students used these wonderful glass plates with cobalt blue swirls (www.target.com  & only online) in two sizes, dinner and salad.  These very reasonable plates come from Murano, the glass making island near Venice.  

Using two pieces of Oasis, we set them up with an oasis between the dinner and the salad, and one on top of the salad.  A quarter slice of oasis went between each plate, the edge covered by part of an aspidistra leaf.  These are variegated leaves with random white striping.

The other materials were:  white mini calla lilies, sky blue agapanthus, bright pink roses, lime green spider mums, variegated aspidistra, lily grass, galax leaves, bear grass, baby artichokes and small limes. 

The students did a great job!   Once they had assembled their plates - rather like making a floral an ice cream sandwich - they then chose where they wanted to put the fruits. Limes and artichokes were left whole in some places and sliced in half in others.   

Despite the fact that they all used the same materials, each design had an individual flair. Rhythm is created by the linking of the two levels of the design.  Assorted glass headed corsage pins  (www. jamaligarden.com) help to hold some of the plant material in place.

Using the bear and lily grasses, the levels can be linked and the design gains some exuberance from these large spaces which are created. 

Any shape plate can be used as I did here with square plates, putting one on the diagonal to the other.  Glass plates with an interesting edge (see demonstration of oasis above, plates from Crate & Barrel)  sets up a cool summery water-like aspect to the design.  The artichokes which have the look of water lily buds carry that idea through. 

Always use two skewers parallel to each other to hold the fruit into the oasis.  Oil of clove (health food, drug stores) on the skewer will create a seal and eliminate the opening as a source of fruit flies – but cannot promise the same for the surface of a cut lime.

The design above was done several years ago in East Hampton.  These plates are much larger and you can see I have used much more material including some white and green tulips and moss.  No rules to this idea, its fun and sturdy!  To keep the oasis moist put some ice cubes between the flowers and let them melt down.

Cheers!

The pastels of June

Easy modern designs

June, moon, spoon ran the old song, and pastel shades flood the gardens, flower stands, and flower markets.  Last week four students came to The Barns to create modern mass arrangements.  These contemporary designs are not your mother’s mass arrangements.  These focus on a strong container and bold blocks of color and texture.  Butterflies and bees would be harmed trying to fly through these designs! 

Materials were chosen because they offered contrasts of textures – shiny vegetables, lush bold peonies, feminine roses played against the floriferous busyness of hydrangea, the dark sheen of galax leaves.

In the demonstration design above, you see that the materials are kept in groups placed next to each other, rather than an open (those birds and butterflies again!) interspersed placement.  The solidity and boldness of the groupings balance the height and heft of the container, which is an important element of the design.

As with most things, the design reveals itself by the doing of it.  For first timers, there is a give and take to get the design to take shape.  It is fun to watch the moment when you can literally see the student ‘get it’ and start to have fun with it.  The simple verdigris 'copper' container – rather like a beaker – was filled with material (see cross section) and a shaped block of oasis put on the top.  It should sit well above the top edge of the container so stems may be placed at an angle.  The oasis can be taped to the container to keep it in place.  However I find either the tape is just where I want to put a stem or it shows on the container. Instead we used kitchen skewers, poked through the hydrated oasis into the oasis pieces that we used to fill the container.  Because the arrangement will be top-heavy, ‘ballast’ in the form of hydrated oasis, stones, gravel or sand will keep it from toppling over.

The angled materials disguise the rim so container becomes a seamless element of the whole design. The materials were purple allium, lavendar spider mums, crème de la crème roses, green peppers, celosia (the marvelous green brain coral looking material), hydrangea and galax leaves.  The visual weight of the massed materials balances the height of the container. 

  

 

Although all the materials supplied were the same, notice how different each one is. They did not have to use all the materials but most did.  To water the design, slip ice cubes between the stems at the top, they will melt into the oasis keeping it hydrated. 

    

Every kind of material is grist for the mill of this design.  The one above is simpler and made from the supermarket, in a slightly smaller container from Michael's.  This ceramic container is heavier so no need for so much 'ballast'.  I just plopped the oasis on the top.   Bunches of 3 peonies, 3 spider mums, 6 carnations plus 6 jalapeno peppers.  Happy designing….

Cheers!