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flower flinging
a celebration of....flowers, flower shows, friendships, fun and sometimes food...
Monday, October 8, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
You are invited....
You are invited to come to my website www.flowerflinging.com and continue to follow the fun!
Today's post is called Off the Wall -do you know what this is? Come and find out! Cheers!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
A tisket, a tasket, a chicken wire basket....
A country wedding, a
farmer’s market theme, held on a beautiful farm – what fun to put flowers and
vegetables together. In what??? That’s the question. Round tables of ten, many round tables
of ten…and a obdurate caterer who wanted everything on the table from the get
go – bread service, cups, saucers, Sweet-n-Lo, cream, resulting in a terse
“your centerpiece shouldn’t be more than 12” wide!
How about chicken wire –
very farm, yes? – baskets and various combinations of vegetables and
flowers. Above are three: Left: eggplant/tomato/long green
peppers/rex begonia leaves/purple scabiosa; Middle: radicchio/purple onions/
pink potatoes/ celadon cabbage/feverfew/ purple verbena; Right: savoy cabbage/
purple kale/ribbon grass/zinnias/brussel sprouts.
Trouble is you have to make
the basket. After some false
starts, I made a plan. It was time consuming, but easy. This was before Google. Taking a look now, there are various tutorials for
complicated basket making and many suppliers of baskets ranging from $8 to
$75+. Nothing like this “one-piece-wonder-for-pennies“…..
First the chix wire. Obviously the chickens have felt
persecuted as it now is called poultry netting! It comes in rolls in various
widths – 24” to 48”. Using a 24” roll, cut the width in half, lengthwise.
There is a handy wire down the
center - cut along it. This basket
(roughly 13” D by 23” H handle) requires a 5-6’ length x 12” wide.
It is really a fold, crimp,
bend and then fold over the handle and attach. We are going for insouciance here rather than perfection! The wire is very forgiving and the
little ends – though ouch! – bend around and hold the whole thing. I wanted all the handles to be slightly
twisted and bent differently, so they are squashed and manipulated. Easier to actually do than to
explain or draw.
Best is, you can see right
through it. However, that very
quality makes it hard to see in a photograph.
After the wedding, the baskets
came back to me and they have been used often in many colors, up and down the
East Coast. At a Rare Plant
Auction donor luncheon at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, the theme encompassed
the spring flowers that were blooming outside in the gardens and woodland. The staff brought us armloads of them
to make the centerpieces.
A rehearsal dinner with a
Spanish theme used black baskets with bright carnations and black fans.
The copper color is my
favorite finish. Design Master makes
the best spray paint for this kind of project. This basket holds the fruits of this season – ornamental
gourds – plus some flowers from another design. They are tucked into a glass spice jar filled with water and
nestled between the gourds.
Curving bear grass echoes the shape of the basket.
Cheers!
PS. This is the last post on blogger - please visit me on my website:
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Shop Seven...
In the Berkshires of western
Massachusetts, Route Seven is the bucolic north south route, winding through
rural communities and the ‘bright lights, big city’ of Pittsfield. From Sheffield at the southern border
with CT to Williamstown at the northern border with VT, Route Seven is known as
the antique corridor.
Gardening is almost as
popular with many fine shops, nurseries and local growers who put out a summer
table with an honesty box in their front yard. The best of the home/garden/gift stores is Campo de
Fiori. They operate a huge
wholesale business, supplying stores across the country. Their only retail store is on
route 7 in Sheffield.
Open every day but Christmas
and New Year’s, this beautiful store beguiles with gifts and products for all
the senses.
From spring to autumn, the
gardens surrounding the store brim with ideas and fascinating plant
combinations along with one-of-a-kind objects that delight and surprise.
Mexico is the main source of
much of what they design and sell, with various clay pots of all shapes and
sizes being a specialty.
The huge building is
overflowing with plants real and faux, garden tools, candles and soaps, planters
and vases, pillows and lovely jewelry.
Upstairs, furniture - tables & chairs - framed prints, accessories and more temptations all attractively
presented, waiting to be taken home.
You’ll find it hard to leave
empty-handed.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Solder On...
Structures were the theme of
flowerflinging Camp here at my studio in the Berkshires in August.
One structure that I wanted
to create got lost in the merriment and the more fascinating ideas. Above is the forlorn project in the
garage. I have to confess I have an
inordinate fear of soldering. Copper tubing is a wonderful, shapeable material and
it comes in coils of various diameter. The larger the diameter the stronger the tubing.
Last year at the Philadelphia Flower Show, the MOG and I
combined it with various orchids swooping in and out of glass containers with
great results – we won our class and Best of the Day. True confession: we found a handyman to do the soldering.
The first time I worked with
copper piping was on a long-ago entry at Philadelphia. The Pinkster and I were in a class
called “Un Gran Gourmet”. We made
a giant whisk-looking structure which, as you see, was not without bumpy
imperfections. The whole design was close to six feet tall. After the installation, a fellow
exhibitor told us about plumber’s tube bending spring set which keeps the
copper tubing smooth and kink free.
Just slide it on and then slowly work the curves of the copper.
Here are the tools of the
trade. Clockwise from top left, the tube bending spring set (what a mouthful); JB
Kwik Weld - acts like solder (Mr. GCA kindly sent this over for me to try); an
example of two pieces of tubing ‘glued’ with JB Kwik Weld; a piece of copper
tubing with a spring set slipped on it.
In the center is the gismo that cuts the tubing.
Here’s the gismo in
action! It goes round and round
til it cuts through. With the
narrowest tubing for refrigerator ice makers, you can simply cut the end with
wire cutters but you are left with a crimped end.
Using the two glue tubes mixed
together, spread the glue at the places (noted with blue tape) where the copper
pieces meet. It is important to
use enough of the black goopy glue and have enough surface where they meet up.
Back to my project! My goal
is a spaghetti-like structure to which flowers or other plant material might be
wired. I worked the copper shape to fit in a tray pan (14” square,
jamaligarden.com). These gladioli are attached to the
tubing in more than one place so they stay put. The thin copper wire is
supposed to be decorative. Not
sure I worked the fine wire attractively, though.
Water fills the tray so that
a half inch of the stems are submerged.
For this group of montbretia (Crocosmia aurea) stems,
the tray is also filled with crushed shells (Michael’s Crafts). These are so pretty and they echo the
warm tones of the flowers and the copper while providing another texture.
My nemisis……fear of
soldering. I’ll take the twelve
step program and try to conquer it, but just not now……
Cheers!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The World in a Jar...
In August the effervescent
Tovah Martin came to the Sharon Audubon Center to share her enthusiasm about
the little worlds she creates and celebrates in her book “The New Terrarium”, published by Timber Press.
By recruiting an army of
terrarium converts, one in each office cubicle, Tovah believes the stress of
work would be greatly reduced and we would all be happier.
She compared the terrariums
of the 1960’s which were like science experiments to those of today which are
works of art – miniature worlds of calm.
As you see all sorts of containers work for her, many of which she finds
in thrift shops for pennies.
When Bride and Groom came
for Labor Day weekend, we hiked the Appalachian Trail and made terrariums. They are fun and simple to make. Above are our containers and Tovah’s
book. It is best to work with a
container you can put your hand in
easily – we aren’t building ships
in a bottle!
The ‘ingredients’ are not
hard to find: stones, horticultural charcoal, organic potting soil, plus
plants.
Given the small diameter of
our containers, we used mostly plants from 2” pots. Terrain in Westport CT features terrarium containers and
plants as well as Tovah’s book. You
don’t need specialist plants, however, it is very easy to split a larger plant
into two or three. The supermarket
often has small plants.
Let’s start with the layers.
First the stones – a layer of 3/8” stones will allow best the circulation of
water. Add a small handful of
horticultural charcoal and mix it in. This will keep the water sweet. We mixed this separately and then put a
one inch layer in the container.
Two inches of organic
potting soil goes on top of the stones and is leveled and lightly tamped
down.
The planting is just like planting outside. Make a sufficient hole, plant and firm up. Do the ‘tug test’ to make sure it won’t pop out.
The planting is just like planting outside. Make a sufficient hole, plant and firm up. Do the ‘tug test’ to make sure it won’t pop out.
Our plants were well watered
before planting. Simply add water
and a little misting. Once the lid goes on the container, you are setting up a
little biosphere.
On the Appalachian
Trail we collected (shhh!) some pretty stones, cones and pieces of bark. These we added to the terrarium for
contrast. What a souvenir of the day!
There is no end to the kinds of little objects you might want to
include.
You may soon become an
addict, finding all sorts of containers and plants to use. Best to buy Tovah’s book and really
learn how to do it – a great project for school kids or a garden club workshop….
and be sure to have fun!
Cheers!
Sunday, September 9, 2012
What Floats your Boat?
Boat shaped containers are
not easily found but worth seeking out.
They are versatile for many styles of design. Their curves make them less weighty than their rectangular
counterpoints. Subscribers know that my tables are long and narrow so I am
always in search of ways to march the designs down the tables.
Here’s the boat, with a
piece of Oasis inside. Below I
have chosen one variegated ti leaf (aspidistra),
could be any lovely leaf or leaves that fit inside the shape or not.
The pearl headed pins just hold the leaf in place (www.jamaligarden.com, Michael’s). It will last a long time this way even though the stem is removed!
With a shear or knife cut a
slit in the leaf where you want your flower stem to go in. I am using very short stems of lilies
here. These buds will open, though
not too quickly.
To connect these designs I
added painted black curly willow sticks.
These are from www.save-on-crafts.com, but Michael’s, Pier One or other stores often have
them. Or you can paint fresh curly
willow, but those sticks are more irregular, which could make them more interesting but harder to work with.
The willow stems rest between the flowers on the container and link up the arrangements. Do put the
vases in place on the table before you place the willow. These were from a lunch for the ff
campers, using white lilies.
At a dinner, using pink
lilies - good thing it was on the porch as the lily fragrance was almost over-powering.
This version with sunflowers
were originally placed on red and white check tablecloths at tables in a tent for a very
country luncheon! Here they have come back to my table, none the worse for wear!
Cheers!
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