On Flowers in a Vase
On Flowers in a Vase
It can be nice to put things into words, but sometimes I am not so sure. I love flowers. I like them, too. I like looking at them. I like talking about them. I like thinking about them. When I am home, I am in the garden. It is where I want to be. The rub in writing about flowers is it means time away from them. Also, it is hard to write about flowers it in a way that doesn’t feel, well frankly, icky. Maybe it's the soft-core euphemism with seasonality. In truth, I'd rather write about a tomato sandwich, so I did.
A few weeks back, I was in my garden having a good time of it. Some early 90 degree days had hurried things to bloom so I was walking around and cleaning things up and cutting things here and there that I otherwise wouldn’t be cutting. One might not be expecting their meadow rue to bloom in early May, but that is no reason to let it go unappreciated.
My garden design is a bit like how I am in the vase. It is not that I am out to break the rules, it is more the rules don’t occur to me. My eye wants it there so I put it there. If I decide something needs to be moved a foot this way or that way or two plants must absolutely by all means switch spots, then I will grab a shovel and do just that. Sure, that can cause some setbacks. But if we can’t be impulsive with the things we imagine lasting for years, then why would we ever want them to last that long.
My mother’s garden is more formal than my own. That is not to say it is “formal", but it knows the rules, accepts them. It is a beautiful garden and its beauty and freedom are found within those rules. There is a lot to appreciate about that. I certainly prefer it to trend. Trends are just a small sets of temporary new rules. I’ll take the old ways over that, at least they are quieter about it.
In floral design, like in all design I suppose, it seems there are a never-ending series of cyclical trends. As practitioners we’re supposed to herald these as a discovery, and in that way make it an accomplishment and somehow about ourselves-- like Stout Cortez coming upon the "New World" -- but really, we are just putting flowers in a vase.
So anyway, a few weeks back, I was putting flowers in vases— the meadow rue and other things I had cut— thinking if this isn't nice, I don't know what is. I decided to make a class of it. Unfortunately, that meant I had to take a picture of it. For me, pictures of flowers are like pictures of sunsets. Nobody has ever taken a picture of a sunset that feels like a sunset. Technically they may be true, the colors are captured and everything is in the right place, but honestly they miss the honesty of the moment. Join me Wednesday if you want. We'll put pretty things in vases. You can take pictures if you want, but being there means you won't have to.
--Taylor