big arrangement

This shouldn't even qualify as a windowsill arrangement--it's too big--but I hadn't posted for a couple of days and had to prove I hadn't been sitting on my hands! Actually, I've even done half a dozen little things in the windowsill but have had no time to photograph or post them. This is something I did for an entirely different purpose, but it fit on the windowsill... so... here it is.

Mary Louise's windowsill

I was the lucky guest of Mary Louise Hagler, in Augusta, Georgia, this week, and, when I arrived, this was an arrangement on her windowsill. So, so sweet (and in a hand-me-down container that had belonged to her mother-in-law). Not a bad way to be memorialized---with flowers in a vase that once belonged to you. The arrangement is beautiful, but it was the shadows (real and metaphorical) that thrilled me about this.

hairy bittercress & speedwell

Pulled two perfect clumps of speedwell and hairy bittercress (both weeds) out of the garden yesterday, but they were too fat and happy to throw away. Brought them inside and "planted" them in this little dish, which had an arum leaf already in it. Then decided to elevate the whole thing on a black pin cup. Why? Not sure. It just looks more interesting, and more contemporary, to me.

daffodils in upended vase

This vase is supposed to be used horizontally, but today I decided to use it sort of like a shadow box. The daffodils, aucuba foliage, and spent iris stem are in a small pin cup (which holds water). Love the colors of all this, and the fact that it includes fresh and dead things. Reminds me of some painter's palette & subject matter--Goya?

daffodils with rusty stove burner

Months ago, Mary Garner-Mitchell found this rusty stove burner in an old trash heap at Flower Camp, and I couldn't throw it away. Today it bubbled back up into my life, and I propped it up in the windowsill where it drew this little bunch of daffodils to it. Under the container holding the daffodils (an square pin cup) is another piece of rusted metal Mary discovered.

yesterday's daffodils--in my own shadow

I decided to re-arrange yesterday's daffodils in a different vase, and when I went to photograph the result it required a different windowsill, and in that different windowsill, in different light, I was fighting my own shadow, but then I decided to keep moving my head until I liked where its shadow landed around the daffodils! Real photographers must do this all the time, but this was a revelation for me.

At last--'February Gold' daffodils in March!

Here they are, at last, the February Gold daffodils blooming in mid-March. I gathered this bunch up in my hand this afternoon and then nestled them into an arum leaf, like a bouquet. Didn't want to separate the bunch or just drop them into an ordinary vase, so I put them in this little, low, ceramic "tray" instead. The daffodil stems are in water. The curving arum leaf stem is not.

three crocuses and a hellebore leaf

I'm sure this was inspired by some dramatic, gigantic, contemporary arrangement I saw at the Philadelphia Flower Show, and I love it that this is tiny and includes only three crocus blossoms and three pieces of a winter-weary hellebore leaf. All my spent hellebore leaves need to be cut off, I'm sure, but I enjoyed using three parts of this one in an arrangement. The leaflet (actually one section of a single palmate leaf) at the bottom of the arrangement is rolled over onto itself the way asphidistra leaves are sometimes rolled and looped like ribbon in larger arrangements. Old hellebore leaves may look awful in the garden right now, but they actually have deep, rich, "weathered" color that looks beautiful in a situation like this. And, I love this small, sort of metallic container from The Arranger's Market. It has one hole in its side (near the top) that grabs flower stems in an interesting way.

long, long hazelnut catkins

The branches of this small hazelnut tree are gorgeous outside (I've never, ever seen its catkins so long), but the arrangement of the twigs is sort of gawky, and I've never quite found a way to display them inside. That's probably a good thing, because as soon as they warm up they start releasing pollen and my allergies go nuts! Still, I love looking at them "up close and personal" for a while.

henbit, resurrected

There's a funny story behind this. On my way to lunch with Mary Garner-Mitchell and Wendy Northup on Monday, I spotted a big clump of almost-dead henbit on the Ashland sidewalk. It had obviously been recently weeded from one of the beds near the Ironhorse. I picked it up and took it with me to try to rescusitate it in a glass of water during lunch. No luck, it still looked pretty dead when it was time to leave, but I wrapped it in a napkin and took it home where I put it in WARM water. Tuesday morning, it looked fresh as a daisy, and today I used it in this arrangement. Mary and Wendy will testify to the fact that this was, indeed, a resurrection!

weed tower

Even the weeds are looking a little ratty after the winter of 2015. This is a nice little rosette of hairy bittercress, one of the earliest spring-blooming weeds, and even it has some burned foliage. It's blooming, though (tiny white flowers about the size of this dash:  -- ),

While looking through my files, I found this photo of what was blooming on March 9 last year--this sweet Iris reticulata. That's not even close to blooming this year.

from frozen north to sunny south

Ah, real soil to connect with in Ashland, Va. These winter aconite blossoms greeted me when I got home from NYC. The most interesting thing I could find to display them in was this pepper tin, which, I realize is now an antique, because Ann Page products (from A & P grocery stores) are now distant memories.

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frozen north

This was the best I could do for a windowsill arrangement in NYC this past weekend--a friend's discarded rain boots in a hotel trash can. Four to eight inches of snow felt like less in NYC, but it was still a slushy mess.

seed packet with alstromeria, fake grape hyacinths

This is a free packet of seeds I picked up at the Philadelphia Flower Show. So pretty and cheerful. In the vase behind it (left) is that immortal stem of alstromeria flowers I've been using in arrangements for weeks and (to the right) the five artivicial grape hyacinths (Muscari) I also bought at the Flower Show. They are just so very real-looking and they're the pale blue-green of the Muscari variety I love best. To make the Muscari flowers stand at different heights, I jammed some of them into okra pods.

 
It doesn't show in the picture, but, for the record, I want to make note of the fact that there's still snow on the ground out the window!

Mary's photo of Philly windowsill

This is a much better photo (by Mary Garner-Mitchell) of yesterday's windowsill arrangement. The tulips are real (bought them at the Philadelphia Flower Show) but the bluish muscari are not! Bought those, too, at the show, but they are artificial. Using them like this (mixed with real flowers) you'd truly never know.