Peaches N Cream

Lucy and Jo languishing prettily in my loungeroom.  A living, breathing Waterhouse painting.

summer harvest

Spent a solid day in the garden yesterday, here at the farm.  We had so much rain this past Spring that everything shot up the most amazing amount of growth, but the plants just can’t sustain it in the heat unless I pour gallons of water onto it all (and I just can’t do that).  Anyway, the plus side is armfuls and barrowloads of beautiful stems and seedpods; this urn arrangement is a summer tangle of these.  The peonies are from Victoria but everything else is farm-grown.

For me, this kind of arrangement has real meaning, in the sense that it represents what I love about floristry: a connection to nature and the ability to follow through a plant’s life from seedling to harvest.  It’s not going to win any prizes at a floristry show, it’s much too loose, but it’s the kind of unruly beauty that I love.  And I’d take that over a pristine, oversprayed, hothouse, plastic wrapped bunch of imported perfection any day.

Crabapples from my friend Maria’s orchards in Stirling. Brass pot from The Props Dept, Adelaide.

A bouquet from last weekend. Photo: White Wall Photography, South Australia.

Urn supplied By The Props Dept, Adelaide.

In the studio

So much. So much on, so many emails, so many early mornings, phonecalls, long drives, people, messages, so much to do, so much.  Rush rush rush rush.

And then there is the solace of the flower studio.  Its dark grey walls, cool concrete floor and the hum of the fridges. There is a blackbird nesting in the vine growing on the outside wall, it cheers me up.  And so do the flowers.  The flowers.  They are a constant source of beauty, and of calm.  Which is why as humans we are drawn to them;  they offer up a window to nature, and a few stolen seconds of tranquility.