Reduse, Reuse, Recycle Passionflower Style

There are occasional advantages to being a packrat - like when you want something charming (and no muss , no fuss, low cost) to present your wedding boutonnieres to the bridal party.  And guess what we found? 

 

Empty boxes from last years Christmas ornaments.

 I'll never want to throw an empty box away again.

 

 

Sage leaves, explosion grass, freesia, euc pods, and a twine ribbon wrap.

middle photo courtesy Roost

I think I met my soul sister - except I didn't meet her I just saw her art

 

I'm taking a few days in Philadelphia visiting my family before the New York Gift Show and came upon the work of M F Cardamone while visiting the Barnes Foundation Museum.  (The Barnes merits a whole blog post of it's own, but suffice it to say, if you ever find yourself near Philadelphia and if you are a lover of art, particularly Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, or Renoir, you definitely must go - seriously it's the largest Renoir collection in the world and the  Matisse holdings are pretty extensive too)....but back to the reason for this post.  Ms Cardamone has been an artist most of her adult life and lately she's been collaging these modern day herbariums - that double as infographics too, teaching you about the relationship between man and the plant. (And other things too) 

This one is called Tree of Life.   I am in total awe. 

Click here to go to her website and see more  

The Sweet Things in Life

 It's rare you hear people talk about wedding flowers and what they cost.  I guess because we're supposed to be all smiles and happiness when it comes to weddings. So it was refreshing to see this blog post which was making all the rounds earlier this year which actually talked about what those beautiful wedding flowers you see in magazines really cost.  All too often, the small town florist (that's me) is in the uncomfortable position of having to say, "Sweetheart, those flowers just aren't in  your budget".....And I thought to myself, "I think I'll try a different tact"...so this time when the bride came in and showed me a photo, I just told her "those cake flowers will cost $100" and then I let her decide if it was in her budget or not.  You could see the extremely charming and gracious mother of the bride visibly gasp at the price and I have to admit, even I was a little shocked to hear myself uttering that.  But now I think,  "That was $100 well spent" because the impact was huge.

And the family was Dutch so we used this charming little bi tone tulip as a nod to their heritage.  Which made me really happy.  Thanks Tobi Sovak from Noisette  for making our flowers look so good on that cake.

Coming Home after a Long Day at Work....

A little home altar at the foot of my bed...

And to all a goodnight...

Fleshy Fruit and other Tales of the Dubious Flowering Fig

I haven't been blogging much.  Because it's summer.  And I cannot lollygag about the house drinking morning brews and tapping away because.....well dang it's hot and I'm spending a lot of time watering and opening windows and turning on fans and closing windows and moving sprinklers and picking figs and plums and chilling with my houseguests   And , well,  you get the picture.  Plus I haven't been using the camera much lately either.  Like at all.  I can barely remembered the last time I picked up a camera.  So you'll have to settle  for  a picture of figs from last year.

 

 

Figs are one interesting plant, They're odd in the world of flowering plants because they flower on the inside (you know how most flowers open up , well figs, kind of open inwards when they flower) and they're pollinated by a tiny wasp that goes inside the budding fruit.  They're a kind of flower that never sees the light of day.  Which is odd. Really odd.

 

 

  It's a good year for figs and I'm getting a spectacularly good early crop.   I'm going to try drying some in my convection oven and using them in granola.

What's Happening

I forgot to tell you that we're having a great sale this weekend at Passionflower.  A good sale. A really good sale.  Lots of super cute clothes and other goodies half off.  So, tell your friends, come early and get the good stuff.

 

It's Dahlia Season Chez Passionflower

 

 

 

My sources in the know tell me that these overcast mornings we've been having

tend to make the colors of the dahlias even richer and more intense.

 

 

 

Now I ask you, how extremely cool is that? That this family has been growing dahlias for so long and paying attention to the subtleties of sun and wind and water and weather, that they notice these

kinds of things.