WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION, almost any water-tight container can become an elegant "vase" for flowers. Take, for instance, the soup tureen pictured up top. This antique vessel resides on a games table in my entrance hall. Normally it holds nothing more than air. But this week, florist Erin Brady filled the tureen with a delicious soup:
Read more » Flower Arranging
Floral Soup
February 11, 2013
WITH A LITTLE IMAGINATION, almost any water-tight container can become an elegant "vase" for flowers. Take, for instance, the soup tureen pictured up top. This antique vessel resides on a games table in my entrance hall. Normally it holds nothing more than air. But this week, florist Erin Brady filled the tureen with a delicious soup:
Read more » Flower Arranging: July Blooms for a Cold January
January 25, 2013
THIS WEEK, in response to the frigid (sub-zero!) temperatures outside, I hoisted the big blue urn off my entrance hall table, and promptly delivered it to Erin Brady. Erin is an award-winning florist. Would you like to see closeups of the soul-warming bouquet she arranged for the hall? Read more » The Power of Flowers Indoors
June 15, 2012
I ALWAYS WANT FLOWERS IN MY HOUSE, and now I know why. A behavioral study conducted by Harvard Medical School has concluded that flowers indoors affect our emotional well-being in a positive way. The arrangement above, which designer Erin Brady created for my entrance hall, makes me feel positively euphoric. Closeups of this inexpensive but lavish display, and more details about the power of flowers: Read more » Instant Spring: Forcing Forsythia & Other Branches
January 5, 2011
A VASE OF GLOWING, GOLDEN FORSYTHIA is just the thing to alleviate winter dullness in the house. You can cut the branches in late December or early January, and they will bloom for you just 2 or 3 weeks later. And other common garden shrubs can be forced as easily. Of course the branches will… Read more »
Nicotiana for Evening Perfume
July 21, 2010
I CAN’T THINK of a better evening-scented annual than Nicotiana, the “flowering tobacco” plant. ‘Purple Perfume’ (above) beguiles with dusty violet stars on one-foot stems; planted beneath windows here, it fills the house with a sweet, invigorating air. And placed along pathways, sweeps of tall, white nicotiana insure a moonlit walk in the garden is… Read more »
Here Comes the Bridal Wreath (Spirea vanhouttei)
May 10, 2010
JUST NOW, my front yard appears dressed for a royal wedding, because the enchanting Spirea vanhouttei is in bloom. You might know this deciduous shrub as the “Bridal Wreath” spirea, and the pliable, pendulous branches can indeed be fashioned into head-gear. I’m not a wreath-wearer, but I do delight in the plant’s fountain-like form and… Read more »
Highlights from 2010 African Violet Show
March 29, 2010
WHAT FUN I HAD attending the Capital District African Violet Society’s annual show in Guilderland, New York, this weekend. One of the first plants to grab my attention there was ‘Ma’s Blue Spinner,’ pictured up top. This chimera, grown to perfection by Margaret Califano, has sumptuous, semi-double blue-purple blooms, and handsome, medium-green leaves edged in… Read more »
