Category Archives: Flowers

Decompression from vacation continues…

Working a new job continues…

But still I make the time…

to smell the lilacs.

They come but once a year.

The night was wet. It made things messier that way, but such was the state of the evening, and it was the only time I could do it. In matters of human-made holidays, nature is not obliged to oblige. I grabbed a large paper bag, a pair of scissors, and slipped out into the darkness. Pausing on the side porch, I allowed my eyes to adjust to the night. Beads of fallen rain glistened on the grass. The gate gave way easily, and I padded quietly onto the lawn. It was spongy beneath my feet. The road stretched to the left and right – I went left, up a slight incline. At the top of the little hill was the destination.

My shadow shortened then elongated as I passed a street lamp. If I was to be seen, this would be where it happened. As far as I could tell, I moved on unspotted, and if anyone did witness me they weren’t doing anything about it. There was another street lamp near the top of the hill, but it wasn’t lit. That made is safer, but more difficult to locate the prize. No matter – I smelled them before I saw them. I knew they were there. They could not escape.

I circled them first, squinting and scanning which area might give the least resistance, which would afford the easiest access, and when I found a break I leapt up and entered. There, in the center of the group, I wielded my scissors. Drops of rain fell about me, stinging my head. The grass shuddered around us beneath the falling water. For a few moments, I broke the silence of the night.

As each branch gave way, I dropped the lilacs into the bag. They were for a bouquet for my Mom. When I made it back home, I shook them out, then smashed the stems before putting them in a vase of cool water. They would greet my mother in the kitchen the next morning, as a Sunday surprise for Mother’s Day. Worth all the wet trouble they were.

This season has taken so long to warm up, that the peonies here have barely broken ground. That may work to our advantage – they usually open on the days that we’re in Ogunquit for Memorial Day, so couple with an early holiday, and a late winter, we may be home for their amazing show. For now, however, a few links to the past must provide enough peony power for this special day.

Peony Parade 1

Peony Parade 2

Peony Parade 3

Peony Parade 4

The peony has always been one of my favorite flowers, from its association with childhood memories, to the memories it conjures of my wedding day. It is imbued with happy correlations, and the fragrance is one of those triggers that always warms the heart. Summer… family… happiness… love.

At the end of the sculpture garden, a conservatory. Coming as it did near the end of a blustery walk, perhaps it carried more relief than it otherwise would – though this sort of environment has always held special allure for those of us enamored of plants and flowers.

Rose-tainted bracts of Spathiphyllum, surrounding their phallic flowers, brought a sense of primal urgency to the proceedings, reminding of the sexual sub-layer that runs through all of life. A plaque offered up words of wisdom, ruminations, and an explanation for the enclosures at hand.

I admire when words and beauty collide. If there’s a single goal for this blog – for this entire website in fact – it’s that wondrous collision. The crux that obliterates all else ~ that moment of intersection between mind and heart. Whenever they meet, there is magic. Sometimes, being in a special place aids in the alchemy.

The gods have always lived in clearings, sacred groves, or green theaters enclosed by special walls. ~ Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

On this day, when the wind was whipping around and the earth was still gray and brown, this little enclosure of glass and green was like a hand upon the heart – a reassuring embrace that all would be well, that spring would again return, that there was still love and hope and beauty in the world.

Vital shades of green – from chartreuse to lime to silvery frost – clicked something in the head. The connection of memory to sun, of color to light, cleared the dusty shelves of spring.

Succulents are an easy group of plants to keep, provided you have the requisite sun. The trick to their cultivation is a steady and strict touch when it comes to watering. It’s best to err on the side of less-is-more. These are resilient plants, accustomed to the unreliable moisture of the desert. Most unsuccessful attempts at keeping them are due to poor lighting and over-watering. When in doubt, leave it out.

When happy, their leaves are plump with water, thick and bulbous and more than apt for their ‘succulent’ moniker. They are the embodiment of life. A defiance of the death so prevalent in the desert. An oasis in the barren and windy Minneapolis landscape.

While they are not known for their flashy flowers, their foliage occasionally comes in rosettes, the leaves forming their own sort of bloom.

If it’s flashy you want, look no further than the hibiscus. Boom. Flash. Sizzle.

Suddenly the day explodes. The walk to the Walker is almost complete…

Their color spoke to me first – the scarlets and salmons, the serpent-like tongues of yellow lapping toward the edges – and then the softest gentlest green of the silver-tinged leaves. They were the ultimate antidote to the longest winter. They pushed all thoughts of that season far away, clearing the way for summer. It was the only outcome. How happy that the tulip heralded such a direction.

Second was their fragrance. Nothing overpowering, nothing too cloying or sweet. In fact, nothing to write much about at all, but it was the scent of spring, the scent of pure joy. It was not something that Tom Ford would try to bottle, it was not going to multiply by waves of bath gel or body lotion, it was a subtle smell, with just the slightest bit of spice to work its trance-like effect.

Finally, there was their history. I love a flower with a tale to tell. Especially one as twisted and tumultuous as the tulip’s. People paid fortunes for a single tulip bulb. A bit of feverish supply-and-demand madness, a crippling inflation, and a blight or two along the way – and all in the name of a single beautiful bloom. The power of the flower.

Some beautiful things defy logic and reason. Some things cannot be priced or valued in any such hum-drum manner. How to monetize the sublime? And why would you bother?

The moment you sully something so pure is the moment it starts to deteriorate.

Such prettiness demands a lighter touch, an effortless brushing by the merest of breaths. It is meant to be inhaled, like the purest of perfume, in ethereal fashion, unfettered by clumsy hands or the clutch of a greedy child.

I didn’t always understand this. My hands picked them from the garden – to covet, to cherish, to hold close. They fought back with their pollen, committing suicide with their fallen petals, or simply expiring in a wilted, lamentable heap of decomposing tissue. I too fell prey to the tulip craze – and I’d do it all over again to come so close to beauty.

This miraculously fail-proof Phalaenopsis orchid, a wedding gift from 2010, resides at my parents’ house. Every few months since we received it, it sends up another small spray of blooms as seen here. A nice reminder of a happy time, and as beautiful now as it was then.

A favorite past-time of mine is to peruse the flower displays at various hotels. If there’s one quick and simple way to judge the quality of prospective lodging, it’s in their floral lay-out. Here you see the impeccable collection of blossoms currently brightening up the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental in Boston. They always have an intriguing display, and this simple grouping of protea and floating cherry blossoms is elegant and refined, with enough exotic elements to make for a show-stopping scene.

The architectural aspect of the blooms is shown off to greatest effect in these simple yet striking globular vases. Most of the time, it’s best to let the floral form dictate the design. A mass of spray roses would be required to make half the statement that a single protea stem can accomplish, so these are wisely given a stand-out base, some flattering lighting, and little else so as to allow their own natural show-off status to truly shine.

I tend to favor one or two kinds of flowers, either en masse or sparingly used, rather than those giant Lisa Vanderpump bouquets that fill in every single possible space with foliage or flower, the end result of which is usually a big clump that ends up being quickly forgotten. In such cases, more is actually less.

Most flowers are interesting enough on their own to not require any sort of further embellishments or accents. It’s difficult to improve on nature, and those who attempt such tricky maneuvering do so at the peril of taste and refinement. A jumbled mash of roses, carnations, and Alstroemeria is always more garish than any of its components taken singly and simply.

One of the most striking flower arrangements I ever saw was at a friend’s summer wedding. It was an elegantly casual affair, and on the tables were simple groupings of circular bowls, low and not interfering with sightlines or conversation. In each was a single dahlia or zinnia, sometimes one of each, floating on the water. Simple. Elegant. Classy. And so much easier than dealing with frogs or oasis or baby’s fucking breath.

Every year at about this time (especially this year given the winter we’ve had) I seek out flower shows or other signs of spring to help me get through the finals days of this dismal season. Years ago, my Mom took my brother and me to the Philadelphia Flower Show, my first brush with this sublime experience. It was dazzling. It was beautiful. It was life-altering. It wasn’t usual for a ten-year-old boy to take such an active interest in flowers, but I’d been that way since I was even younger. I knew the scientific names of most houseplants and perennials, and the flower show was an almost-overwhelming opportunity to see things that I’d previously only been able to view in books. From the opening display of spring-blooming narcissus and azaleas, I was taken over by the whole experience, transported to another realm of beauty and all things sublime.

The greenery and blossoms stretched onward, and I excitedly named and examined each recognizable species. Back then, I wasn’t as interested in escaping winter, I was more concerned with seeing all the plants and flowers. As the years passed, however, I remembered that trip to the flower show, and when I found myself at Brandeis University, bemoaning an endless Boston winter, I sought out the New England Flower Show and boarded the commuter rail early on a Saturday morning in March.

I transferred to the Red Line and got off at the JFK stop, taking a bus to the large convention center than then housed it. I was struck first by the greenhouse scent. The same sense of wonder and awe filled me, and I was instantly brought back to that first Philadelphia experience. A glass-enclosed sitting room was set up in the center of it all, with arching Kentia palms and the floating blooms of Phalaenopsis orchids. A simple chaise lounge on dark mahogany legs like polished tree trunks stood slightly off-center, and it looked like the most paradisiacal place to read a book or spend a lazy afternoon. It formed the inspiration for the renovation of my parents’ attic that I was designing at the time, and offered hope for what that space might become. (It would eventually come to fruition, complete with a chaise lounge by the window, framed by two graceful palms, and softened by a curtain of fine netting.)

On that day, the flower show was the perfect antidote for all the stubborn dirty snow that adamantly refused to depart, a cure for the wailing wind and the continual threat of icy weather. It was almost as good as a vacation to some tropical climate where orchids bloomed from above and calla lilies rose from warm, wet beds. The smell of earth was in the air – that glorious fragrance of peat and moss and life – the wondrous stuff of primal existence, of the most basic of nature’s substance. It filled me with hope, and the outside pain of cold and concrete fell away, the winter receded, and the world blossomed again.

This year the New England Flower Show begins next week, so I may end up missing it, but in my living room there is a Norfolk Island pine, and several rabbit’s foot ferns to ease the chill of these remaining winter days. Mind over matter, beneath the fronds of a few ferns…