Category Archives: Flowers

A proper tablescape is something I’ve tended to ignore up until recent years, and even now I only do such a thing partly out of an over-the-top joke for Suzie whenever she comes over. (There is no one less inclined to craft a tablescape than Suzie. I don’t think she owns a tablecloth, much less anything to go on it for decorative purposes.) So whenever she visits for dinner, I try to create at least one ridiculous sight on the dining room table.

For this New Year’s Eve table, coming as it did in the aftermath of the Christmas holiday, I wanted a simple and elegant wintry scene. Our backyard stand of Steeplechase thuja provided the evergreen sprigs that work surprisingly well as a miniature forest and anchoring greenery for a bunch of creamy single stock flowers.

They rise in a manner reminiscent of primroses, and the soft, subtle flower form is a deceptive veil for the potent sweet aroma they give off.

The greenery here – both on the stock and the scales of the thuja – is a major component, and my favorite part of this collection. A few little glasses hold one or two fronds each of the thuja, but taken together they create an impact greater than their individual parts.

If you lean in, you can get lost in the little forest of sweet-smelling blooms.

Winter keeps its cozy secrets.

Winter is the evergreen before the blooms.

This is the time of the year when the calendar gets filled with parties and events, and the dinners and get-togethers that make the early descent of darkness a bearable thing until the days start to get longer again. There is a sense of excitement in the cold air, accented by the sparkle of holiday lights, the flickering of candles, the Christmas trees that illuminate the darker corners of our homes. And then there is the merry-making and cheerful greetings as friends and family gather to be together at this tail-end of the calendar year. Yet for all of that, I find my most peaceful and tranquil moments in the early morning, after a night out, when the sun is streaming into the living room. Everyone else in the house is asleep, and I pad quietly out to the kitchen to make a cup of green tea.

A recording of a flute and koto plays in the background, and a stick of Japanese incense burns by the window. A few spires of paperwhite narcissus rise from their glass bowls, their heady fragrance mingling with the incense in unlikely but fine fashion. It is a moment of peace.

I sit on a leopard-patterned chair that allows a full view of my favorite room. A Korean tansu rises to my right. A clown loach swims idly around the aquarium to my left. My eyes follow the rising stream of burning incense in the sunlight.

Soon, the house will wake. Guests will shake off the revelry of the previous evening. I’ll press a button and coffee will start brewing. The holiday season will pick up where it left off. Yet I’ll have had my moment, and I’ll want to join in the fun again.

The hydrangeas put in a last minute show this year, sending up a final group of blooms just as the first frosts were hitting. I managed to save a nice set of them before a killing frost hit a week ago. Miraculously, our ferns on the front porch are still going strong, their protected alcove no doubt aiding in their survival this late into the season. As for the hydrangeas, they would not have lasted the night, so I brought them in, and they’ve lasted more than several nights.

What is it about a flower that so soothes us?

Its beauty, its fragrance, its perfect form?

The wonder of its growth, of how it all began and how it came to such a point of prettiness?

It is all of these things, but it is also something more.

No flower lasts forever.

The very notion of its fleeting and ephemeral existence is a lesson in grace and humility.

It is also a lesson in bombast, and how to put on a show.

Flowers don’t have time to do anything but shine and entice.

Their purpose is to make an impression, a lasting impression that secures the propagation of their species.

Because of that, they are made more beautiful.

Just like the best moments in life.

The very shortness of their duration is why we love them so.

There is something soothing in such a finite experience… and something sad too.

Along the meandering Southwest Corridor Park of the South End, pockets of pulchritude lie hidden in wait for any unsuspecting passers-by to happen upon them. Little jewels, like this mound of white flowers, flutter in the fall breeze, a visual foreshadowing of a snow-laced winter to come. That elicits a slight shudder. How dare I mention the W-word at this early stage of the game. No one wants to hear that just yet.

But snow blossoms, they’re another story. I’ll always have room for a white flower. A sign of innocence, a pretend vow of purity, even if no flower is ever truly innocent. They want for nothing more than to procreate like everyone else, and devise the most ingenious ways of doing so. We’ll leave that for another post, however, for on this day, on this morning, we want only to take in the virtuous beauty.

Half-heart, half-cock and the bloody red spath of a spread vagina. Flowers are sexual creatures of exhibitionist tendencies, unfurling their sex organs with flamboyant pride. Here, a bright lemon-hued protuberance rises from its vermillion bath, firm and strong and sensing all sorts of things from the base to the tip. Surrounding its upward-tipped glory, smooth scarlet ripples fan outward, mottled with veiny ridges, shiny and at the ready for any falling drops.

Ho-ho-horticulture.

I love a golden throat, particularly when it’s surrounded by this beautiful peach color. This entire rose blossom is the artistic embodiment of a peach – soft and warm, with an inner heart that practically glows. That’s one of the most magical things about gardening for me – the subtle but distinct shading variations, and the way they continue to develop and change as the life of a bloom completes its cycle.

My only tree peony – a spicy tea-scented beauty – offers a similarly-thrilling ride as it grows from the size of a baseball to the size of a dinner plate, delicately burning a heart of red as the edges of the petals bleed a bit too.

Some blooms are better viewed en masse, but all are interesting when viewed close-up. These flowers were putting on a show on the grounds of the extensive Smithsonian museums in Washington, defying the close of the season, or perhaps exulting in its firework-like finale.

They grew on the neighbor’s chain-link fence when I was a kid. A magnificent shade of blue, like little portals of sky here on earth, they bloomed early in the day, but lasted longer if the day was dark and gray. Back then they signified summer, and summer seemed to last longer too.

Behold the morning glory. Aptly-named for its blooming schedule, they are gone by early afternoon – sometimes sooner if the day is hot and the sun is bright. Made up of one round petal, they are delicate blooms, but the plant is hardy as hell, re-seeding itself like a male whore.

The traditional blue-hued variety makes up for its simplicity with the size of its blooms. New, more varied strains with powerhouse shades of magenta and fuchsia are much smaller in size, packing their wallop in such striking colors and stripes. I veered in this direction a while back, and haven’t found the energy to go back to blue.

Personally I prefer the old-fashioned variety, even if I haven’t grown them in years. The one you see here is a re-seeded sport that has returned with a darker striped cousin. I tend to weed these out, allowing one or two vines to wind their way up through the Miscanthus and Korean lilac. I should probably provide a trellis and try the traditional blue ones again, but that will have to wait until next year.

For now, it’s almost time to tuck the garden in for a long winter’s nap.

The sweetly-scented, daintily-flowered pretty little vine of the sweet autumn clematis is an attractive, if slightly unwelcome, harbinger of fall. If you see it in bloom, you know the darker seasons are right around the corner. Still, better to go out in a blaze of bright beauty than a dried mess of faded form and long-ago-withered flowers to which so much of the garden is quickly reverting. Though there is the risk of being less noticed than those backyard attention-getters (which stun at the height of summer when everyone is there to witness the show), there is something to be said for waiting until the end to shine. I appreciate such studied patience, and I enjoy saving the best for last.

I make the same promise every year, but here it is again: next summer I will grow zinnias. Whenever I see the bouquets at restaurants or hotels spilling over with the happy over-saturated hued of zinnia blooms, I make this very vow, but I always forget, or simply don’t muster the space or will to do it when the time to do so is at hand.

They remind me of my grandmother, of carefree childhood days, of the spark of a colorful flower that thrills in an otherwise dull vegetable plot.

Yes, the world needs more zinnias.

I promise to do my part.

Bright flaming hibiscus!

You make my world so much more gay.

(And it was already pretty gay to begin with.)