A Cutting Garden To Save My Sanity

 Before the pandemic, before the lockdown, inspired by my friend Jane and her fabulous cutting garden in East Hampton, I planted a modest cutting garden. At the very bottom of our garden, where there used to be a lawn.  With inadequate drip irrigation...there was a lot of cursing and hand watering at first.  

Some things from seed, most from 4 inch pots.

Some left over from last year (the Thomas Edison dahlias), some gifted by friends.

Tall blue salvia uliginosa, light and airy Nepeta six hills giant, a stiff mystery plant from Portugal with hairy lavender flowers, beginning to go to seed.

Fragrant blue sweet peas planted last fall climbed to the top of their trellis and spilled over.  I've been cutting long branches to try to get them back under control.  They have territorial ambitions.

Huge heads of mid pink scabiosa.  I should have cut this back by half when it was only two feet tall.  It's now over six feet and a constant battle to keep it upright.  And to keep it from going to seed.  

I'm not a fan of daisies but these Shasta daisies may change my mind...they don't need staking and they are cheerful.  Even when I am emphatically not.

And the fabulous Thomas Edison dahlias.  Planted in gopher cages, left to winter over in our sticky clay. They are the only dahlias to return year after year.  

Laid out on the outdoor dining table, ready to arrange.  I start with the filler, the smaller plants that will spill over the vase.  Their stems hold the flowers I want more upright... 

...like the pincushion flower (scabiosa is such an ugly word, sounds like a skin disease) and the daisies.  And that lovely blue salvia.

There were enough flowers for two arrangements. Well, almost.  Another trip down the long staircase to cut more sweet peas. 

Dahlias and other large flowers go in last, then into a dark cool room for a few hours.  Then in places where I can see them - rooms where I spend time, pass by often. Maybe something small in the bedroom, but I want to see them, to enjoy them.

So what have I learned?

First, the descriptions on the plants in the nursery (fabulous cut flower! Trouble free! Blooms all summer!) are often written by someone who either has never grown a thing, doesn't own a pair of shears, has never had a flower arrangement last for more than one day, or is on drugs.  Or is paid to exaggerate.  

Those plants that emphatically do not make good cut flowers? Dug up and given away.  So the second lesson?  Be ruthless.

Next: If you're growing it from seed it will likely set seed and expire - here, as the summer heats up.  In your garden, perhaps as fall approaches.  But in the heat of our long summers so many beautiful things - huge blue scabiosa from Annie's Annuals, fragrant sweet peas in rich burgundy, mallows and hollyhocks - all gone to seed.  And yes, I was diligent about dead heading.  It's been over a hundred here for more than a week.  If I could go to seed I would...

Shasta daisies are on hiatus.  Cosmos have mildewed and quit.  Coreopsis soldiers on, but I am not in the mood for school bus yellow flowers.  Not in the heat; not after months of them.

Roses are still going but they do not last nearly as long in a vase as the dahlias.  

Salvias shed.  Inside, it looks like an invasion of blue bugs under the arrangement.  I sweep the spent flowers into the sink a few times a day, and keep food out of their range.  Blue flowers and breadcrumbs? No.

I've learned a lot about cutting and conditioning too.

Leaves get stripped, especially those below the water line.   Stems re-cut and quickly dipped in Quick Dip,  a flower conditioner, then into warm water and placed in a cool dark spot for conditioning.  The laundry room if the dryer isn't going.  The guest closet. A dark bathroom. The wine cellar if my husband isn't looking.

What do you grow for cutting? What's blooming in your garden?  What makes you happy?

David Monn, Paula Pryke, and the Most Beautiful Flowers

We went to see David Monn speak at the De Young last week - he is the uber-talented event planner (and that does not even begin to cover what he can do) and flower arranger, and he brought some photos of his events.  Stunning.  And they will probably never be published; his clients are apparently rich, famous, and very private.  He did not name drop, but some of the parties he did are in someone's book... alas we were not allowed to photograph the power point.  

He made luscious arrangements, moving so fast he was a blur:

and then he set the table.  I think I need...well, everything.  Bolder linens, more dishes, whimsical stemware...and little gold chairs.  

 If he doesn't give you inspiration for your next party, there is no hope for you.

He did one huge all-foliage arrangement on a ladder...

I think I'm gonna need a bigger house...

...and maybe a minion or two.

An East Coast friend tells the story of the most over-the-top wedding ever: "He gave her an unlimited budget...and she exceeded it."  David says his clients tell him the same thing.  I wonder if he did that wedding?

Paula Pryke was there too, and what with her shop, her seventeen books, her international lectures, her collecting honors from the Queen via Prince William (and making him laugh) and her whirlwind arrangements, we all felt we should be doing just a bit more...

Love her style...

And yet right here at Chez Panisse I found flowers just as evocative, just as lovely...

And more my style.  Love the looseness.  We live in such a wonderful part of the world.

Flower Power

Thinking about flowers and about Thanksgiving, these inspire.

Amy Merrick.  Wouldn't you love to take a class from her?  Or have her do flowers for your house for the holly daze?

Me too.

Time and Tides In The Garden (with apologies to Andy Goldsworthy)

I used to have lavender on each side of the garage doors.  It looked very French, and it smelled great as you brushed past.  Then it smelled great as you drove by, because it overgrew the door and the incoming tires crushed the branches.  

I finally had to take them out.  It was either that, or park in the street.  There was a brief interregnum with an orangey climbing rose whose middle name was surely mildew, but that, fortunately, did not last long.   Sometimes you have to prune with a shovel. 

Now I have boxwood cones, neat and trim and formal.  In poor soil and with not a lot of water, they seem happy.  And mildew free, at least so far.  I have learned never to say never in gardening.

This morning as I was knocking the cobwebs off the boxwood cones (spiders are one of the plusses - and minuses - of organic gardening, but more about that later) I was thinking about how much my garden has changed in the 12 years we’ve been here.  And it's not just the trees getting taller.  

There are many things that didn’t make the cut (pun intended).  The Myrtle leaf orange trees I thought would look so great flanking the front door, and be so good for flower arrangements were in fact a scale factory, and they weeped.  Refused to hold their branches up.  A tree curling to the ground may look great on the other side of a pond, but right next to the front door it  just looked weird.  And don’t get me started on how much the rats liked those trees…makes me shudder just to think.

Plus I am not the flower arranger I thought I was when I planted them.  I love the first day or so, the surprise of that fresh green on a table, the fragrance that fills the room.  But then having to fill the arrangements with water (when there's almost no place to get the spout of the watering can in, when you also have to find a way to stick your finger in the vase so you don't overfill and ruin your table) - it takes the fun out.  And then there are the dying flowers and, if you're not careful, stinking water...not fun.  

My mom prefers her flowers in the garden.  She has a point.

I agonized before I took the oranges out.  I always agonize - those are living things.  But I have realized that once they’re out, I don’t look back.  Not a twinge.  And that’s making it easier to contemplate taking down a tall skinny curly willow that lists badly and is rubbing the eaves.  

It also made the decision to take out a diseased Quince simpler -  I didn’t want the disease to spread, so out it came, roots and all.  And that has been a gift, for it has opened up a view all the way across the garden, to the old oak in the furthest corner, and that view has made the garden feel both more intimate and more expansive.  I don't know how that's possible either - one of the ineffable mysteries of gardening.

Sometimes the things that look like disasters at the time are really gifts in disguise.  That’s a good thing to remember in the garden.  And it’s a good thing to remember in life.

A Vase With A Waist

It was for my friends Maryam and Karyn that I started picking flowers - a handful each week, shoved into a jam jar or a straight-sided jar that held spices.  A fist full of violets, 

A handful of daffodils.   Or three.

An armful of iris.

I'd always collected garden flowers for dinner parties, and I'm sure looking at the flowers lowered the expectations for the meal - surprise! dinner is delicious!  

But I have discovered I love having flowers by my bedside.  And on the breakfast table.  Fresh flowers, fragrant flowers.  My flowers.  Our flowers.

And so does Wally.

Sure, I go to Ron Morgan's classes, and to Bouquets To Art.  But mostly to marvel at something I'm not good at (yes there is something - finally - that I'm not good at.  Deal with it.)  

Some how, something must have sunk in - by osmosis? and I'm discovering I have quite strong opinions about flower arranging. And I am quite pleased with the result.

1.  From the garden please.  Gotta get something for those ridiculous water bills.  Use those prunings.

2.  Foliage is king.  You only need a few flowers (Ron) or maybe none (Shane Connolly).

3.  Airy Fairy is contemporary.  It's all the rage in London.  Shane is the master; I'm learning.  

4.  Fragrance please on the bedside table.  And no fragrance on the dining table.  (The moose doesn't care.  He's in the hall.)

5.  And!  (this is my best discovery)  Flowers look better in a vase with a waist.  At least mine do.

The next time I go to the flower market I'll be looking for vases with waists.  Leaving before dawn - call if you want to come along.  

Bouquets To Art

Shane Connolly is Irish, and the darling of the London flower world.  He's  Prince Charles' flower arranger, did the flowers for his wedding to Camilla.  

Ron Morgan is the toast of American garden clubs (and mothers and brides everywhere), jetting across the country lecturing and charming and getting daughters married off in style (sometimes for the second or third time).

Yesterday they were on stage together at Bouquets To Art, lecturing and arranging side by side. Very different styles, and besides being fabulous and inspiring they were hysterically funny.

They did maritime arrangements.  Shane arranged flesh colored tulips in a flesh colored shell.  Ron, hands on hips: "That's it?  That's your maritime, that dinky little thing?" 

Ron had an upside-down Corinthian capital and gold leafed barnacles to start with.  Shane: "I didn't know Liberace was in the Navy..."  

Ron:  "Oh yes.  He was decorated several times!"

Ron brought a fabulous twisted branch from a Camperdown Elm, a very slow growing tree, and said "I'm pretty sure this came from the Midnight Supply Company."  Think about it.  If you're missing a Camperdown Elm...

Ron's Grinling Gibbons arrangement:

And Shane's. 

So different, both spectacular.  

They did Chinoiserie, and English Country House Party, Ron facing the audience:

Shane wandering around his arrangement. 

Both keeping up a steady stream of advice and gentle insults.  

There was a lively discussion of the correct height of an arrangement for a dinner party.  Shane said "The English find it rude to talk across the table.  You're supposed to talk to the person on your right, then when the table turns, to the person to your left." That's advice for the gentlemen.  If everybody spoke to the person on their right, the dinner table would look like a conga line. 

So the English make arrangements for the dinner table that are quite tall.  And dense.  And Americans make arrangements you can talk over.  

Ron's Spring:

 Ron said "This is my interpretation of..." and groaned when he tried to move the arrangement.

"Childbirth, by the sound of it." Shane shot off.

Ron place a spray of trembling orchids in his Chinoiserie arrangement and said "Look at how they move!  Just like fish swimming thru the arrangement!"  Shane asked "Do you write Fairy tales in your spare time?" 

"Honey, I am a fairy tale!" Ron shot back.  

"So when did your self doubt start materializing?" Shane asked.

Ron cocked his head and said "About five minutes ago." 

Monocolor, the new English paradigm.  By Shane.  

Shane's style is loose, no oasis.  Ron's is controlled, every flower knows who's boss.  So different, both fabulous.  And inspiring.

There were many more stories - Ron:  "Years ago the Garden Club ladies had chosen a rose to be named for Eleanor Roosevelt, and when Mrs. Roosevelt saw the description of the rose: 'Not good in beds, great against the wall' she declined the honor."

Shane: "There was a man who had a plant named after him.  Some little grey wrinkly leaved thing.  When his wife saw it, she said "Oh honey, that's perfect!"

And of course there were the Bouquets To Art themselves  Winter:

(note the painting being interpreted just behind)

My friend Najat Nicola's painting:

 And her amazing arrangement.  I would have no idea where to start, she nailed it.  Even if it wasn't near the painting you would know to which painting it belonged.

There was some wild stuff:

and some wonderful.  A David Hockney video of spring and this:

A white wall in the hall made into a modern woodland.

Mark your calendar for next March, go to some lectures, and get your tickets early.  They sell out fast - I know why.  

The Old Curiosity Shop, or Fall Flowers at Loot

It's impossible to pass these windows without stopping - they pull you in.  Skinny young men with fierce looking dogs, old men bundled in overcoats - they all stop to look.  They peer at the antique chairs piled with ornaments, at the orange Christmas tree made of piled-up Hermes boxes.  At pale chests covered  with blue and white china. 

They wander in and turn around in amazement.  They move toward a gilded pine cone, an old hunting lamp.  A framed print of  a brightly colored bird, a painting of an old cottage in a richly gilded frame.

There are shells crusted in jewels, branches dangling bright ornaments.

And there is a ceiling festooned with whimsey.  I'm going to Loot.  

See you there.  

Flower Power

If you've never been to a Monday morning class at Loot in Lafayette, you're in for a treat. Ron Morgan, the star and owner, missed a career as a stand-up comic when he chose flowers. Lucky for us.

He has the funniest stories! and great delivery - and he puts together six or eight flower arrangements while telling stories that will make you pee your pants.

He has a fantastic shop full of treasures and inspirations, and while he is making these stunning arrangements...

...he's also showing you how to do it.  Even if you don't have any talent (that would be me) you will learn how to put together a credible flower arrangement. If I can (and I can - finally) anyone can.

Call Betsy at Loot, make a reservation, and go! Oh - and the best part? The arrangements are all for sale. Take a class, give a party.