It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally come around to enjoying tone-on-tone flower bouquets more than the riotous mix of eye-popping super-saturated combustions of colorful petals I once admire. This bouquet of purple shades was made for my Mom’s birthday. I employed the trendy practice of grouping and clumping like flowers together, instead of distributing them evenly like every other florist in the world. This new style suits me, as much for its visual interest as for its ease. It also featured irises, one of my Mom’s favorite flowers, so it worked well fir celebrating her birthday week. (We’re giving her a whole week since in times of COVID we can’t do a big gathering or celebration.)
My favorite element was the steel-blue Eryngium, a variety of which I tried to grow in our soil, but which never took off. We even had a sandy-enough patch of soil, or so I thought, but this one didn’t last a season. I wish it did better, because the architectural form of leaves and flowers is stunning, as is its rare bluish hue.
The iris is the focal point of the scene, thanks in part to the canary tongues at the heart of each bloom – a bright spot of sunny cheer that sets off the cooler shades of the bulk of the bouquet.
Lending some staying power – and should Mom choose she can save these for the rest of the winter – is the standard statice, which used to be more ubiquitous, a la baby’s breath, in typical rose bouquets. I haven’t seen it as much lately, and I much prefer it in this style, when its violet color adds to the overall effect instead of accenting or detracting.
As for Mom’s birthday, we also dropped off a cake that Andy made – in French vanilla and raspberry – which is a sweet bouquet of its own. Happy birthday again, Mom!
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