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.

Spring jewels.

I have been sick as an old dog for nearly the whole month, and the flowers just keep happily blooming without me. It’s harsh but true.  I was in bed for a week with flu and I walked outside after 8 days and the Cecile Brunner rambling rose on the verandah was positively bursting with sprays of exuberant pink. Time waits for no man, or flower lady.

The season so far has been the perfect mix of rain and shine - I used to complain about late rain in spring putting a dampener on fun, but not any more.  Now I lie inside listening to the rain on the roof and I know that outside all the plants would be smiling if they were able.  The flowers at the farm are growing and growing in billowing drifts of green and many are ready for cutting.

Darkest hellebores and miniature daffodil “Tete a Tete” from our Spring garden…

If I could be anywhere….wildflower meadow. And possibly my favourite movie ever.

Spring Springing

White prunus blossoms from our farm. They are always some of the first blossoms to emerge and I cut a huge armful of them to take into the studio.  Such delicate beauty infused with the faint scent of honey.  Blossoms = Spring= sunshine= blue skies = end of Winter= happy happy me.

Winter Bouquets

Every Winter I wonder if it really was a bad idea to move up here to the ‘Hills, its so damn cold.  We moan about our desire to buy a cosy apartment somewhere in the inner city with central heating and carpet and nice modern insulation.  But then Spring comes and I relent, and then get all smug and think that yes what a good idea it was to live out here, as if we would ever live in the city when the sun is shining on the orchard and the birds are peeping.  Winter can be hard. And muddy.

Anyway, to cheer us all up here are some of my bouquets, all made in Winter.  The people at the Tulip farm in Victoria work their magic so that we can get them early (mine are still green points poking through the soil).  These parrot tulips and double tulips are off the dial, amazing.  And the waterlilies….