Hand-gathered bouquet.
By Carolyn Parker
'Carolyn, would you like to redo that gladiola arrangement on the dining table?" asked Allie Corneal."Oh yes," was my reply. I was 9 years old and on a visit to our cheerful neighbor who lived five houses away on Edgewood Street in Beaverton, Ore.
I can still feel my exhilaration, not only because an adult trusted me with her home decor. It was just so much fun to revive the bowl of pale yellow gladiolus. Removing the lower dead flowers, clipping stems, placing the glads back in the frog to suit my youthful aesthetics, filled me with joy — and it felt natural.
My second shot at arranging came 18 years later. I wanted to decorate a buffet table with a large bountiful bouquet for a baby shower I was hosting. My references were bouquets in Impressionist paintings. I'd never actually seen the type of arrangement I had in mind, and I certainly didn't have a big vase. However, a heavy glass flour canister on my kitchen counter made a wonderful stand-in.
A garden full of flowers surrounding our little rented El Cerrito cottage provided a profusion of nasturtiums, roses, hydrangeas, fuchsias and some lush grasses. They filled the container in a burst of color and exuberance, and were a hit at the party.
You might find it strange that I regard these simple acts so highly — they were little epiphanies that seemed magical at the time, and paved the way for numerous freestyle arranging experiences in the future. But wait, there's more.
In 1980, I was asked to provide floral decorations for a big outdoor luncheon. Five large Chinese baskets holding fabric scraps in my fashion design studio came to mind. I thought, if they had 5-gallon bucket inserts, they'd make fantastic containers for a wealth of fresh material from the roadside. I wanted to use wild roses and Queen Anne's lace. I also thought I'd have to clip a few shrubs since the containers were so big.
As luck would have it, a florist friend who purchased regularly from the San Francisco flower market let me tag along early one morning to see if I could find inexpensive flowers that might help fulfill my vision. Huge bunches of pink strawflowers beckoned and were purchased.
I planned to harvest Queen Anne's lace in a Berkeley canyon, only to find that once in my car, the blooms released a swarm of insects, and it all had to be thrown out. A day later, I received a call from a friend in Santa Rosa who noticed it along the roadside there. She asked me if I wanted her to harvest some for the party. I said "Yes." She knew nothing about my thwarted attempt. Santa Rosa was cooler and the flowers had just opened.
On the morning of the party, I gathered all my materials and set up the bucket-lined baskets in a friend's garage. Once I started, the containers filled quickly, and that exhilarating "creator-for-the-moment" feeling flooded me with happiness. The big bouquets, placed on the ground near dining tables, added lush atmosphere to the event.
These three experiences were really all I had done in arranging until my garden overflowed with roses. Then the fun really began, and it's still happening. With a garden of roses and other plant material geared toward arranging, I discovered and learned ways to make stunning, high-impact but easy bouquets. Innumerable ideas for small- and medium-sized bouquets also came my way.
On May 25, I'll be demonstrating arranging ideas at Garden Valley Ranch during an all-day seminar. I hope you'll come. Also, the photo blog on my Web site has many pictures of bouquets to inspire rose-arranging fun. The home page has more seminar info. http://www.rosesfromatoz.com/rose-bouquets.html
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