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....