Category Archives: Flowers

Why Tuesday should feel so much worse than Monday is one of life’s more bothersome mysteries. The Tuesday Blues are a real thing, and sometimes the only thing to combat their shadow is something like these gorgeously-shaded grape hyacinths. The colors of these are more delicate and nuanced than the ones that are more commonly found in the spring garden, and in the greenhouse where I found this grouping, they are far less tattered than those thrown about by spring winds and storms. 

The term ‘hot-house flower’ is usually used in disparaging fashion, describing some overly-delicate person considered too sensitive or sheltered for their own good. Personally, I’ve always thought of a hot-house flower as something rare and exotic, something to be exalted and honored, and if that means being a little more careful and considerate of them, all the better. 

So here’s to the hot-house flowers, like this variety of grape hyacinth, lucky and fortunate to be raised outside of the winter wilderness. We should not begrudge it such a pampered life. 

While outside, April showers…

And all the rain of the past week has put a damper on all the outside work that needs to be finished. I’ve always taken rain as nature’s cue to slow down, particularly at this time of the year when too many of us try to do too many things. Spring has us all a little antsy, and in that diabolical way Mother Nature has, it won’t let us out until we’ve learned to find peace inside. 

To that end, I fill the house with flowers and prettiness, easing the mind with meditation and reading. Quiet pursuits with serenity as their guiding force. A Saturday in spring may start quietly. There will be time for summer noise soon enough. 

Fiery of shade and flame-like of hue, this tulip bloom is a little globe on fire, and it’s inspiring me to burn with the brightest flame, no matter what the cost or wear and tear. “My candles burns at both ends, it will not last the night,” Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote, “But Ahh my foes, and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light!” 

The older I get, the less willing I am to put up with the bullshit. More patient and tolerant in many ways, I’m also well-aware of my breaking point, and what I will or won’t tolerate. Baseless attacks on loyalty and friendship are foremost among those things that cannot be ignored. Peddling in lies and false tales won’t be allowed either. Try me and find out. 

In the past, such a stance was forced and propped up by insecurity and doubt. Lashing out was a way to mask feelings of inferiority. These days, I don’t feel the need to shout. More is accomplished – and in more frightening fashion – when the words are spoken quietly, with assurance, genuine self-confidence, and the irrefutable backing of truth. 

When the fires burn low, and the ash crumbles, it is the truth that will remain – crystalline and unassailable – forged as if in hell, tempered by an ever-present divinity, and sparkling for all the world to see.

The forecast for the rest of the week calls for rain every damn day, so I’m posting a few sunny flower pics in the hope that they bring cheer when the clouds come to stay. These little white daisy-like blooms are produced in abundance on their stems and were, I’m slightly ashamed to admit, designed as filler for some bolder and bigger lilies and sunflowers. Both of those ended their show before these little beauties gave in, and so I can now appreciate them for the wonder they are. 

Their unassuming subtlety and quiet countenance deceptively hide the power of their effect. When viewed up close, and also en masse, their enchantment only grows. 

It is precisely the sort of magic balm we need for these rainy days. 

“It is spring time now! While the world looks for a new war to fight, you look for a cherry blossom to watch! Let the stupid seeks the violence; you seek the elegance!” ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Early spring heaves a heavy sigh, shedding a few tears of upcoming rainy days – a necessary part of spring glory I suppose, but oh how the heart aches for some sun and warmth… In the meantime, all we have are these falsely-started cherry blossoms, doing their best to cajole some happy spirits, and console the heavy hearts. 

A spring jazz selection will have to do to pass these next few dreary days. April showers bring May flowers… April showers bring May flowers… April showers bring May flowers… so we chant and intone and will it into being. 

On this last day of March, and for this final post of the month, here are a couple of peony tulips just beginning to unfurl their splendor. The weather is forecast to be slightly stormy, but warmer, and that’s good enough after the cold spell we’ve had of late. Truth be told, March wasn’t as terrible to us as it could have been (and as it’s been in the past). Changeable weather is a mainstay of upstate New York, and to expect consistency or comfort is a certain path to misery. Instead, we embrace the good days when they’re at hand, and find ways of making the most of the bad ones. 

The last day of the month is also a good place to pause for reflection on where we are now in comparison to where we were when it all began. Comparison is the thief of joy, but we can carefully navigate the past without too much dismay. Let’s start with the most recent week, in which chills and thrills mimicked the variable weather. Then there was this St. Patrick’s Day recap personified by green Burberry briefs. The middle of March brought about this sunny-flower-fronted recap, while the very first recap of the month was equally inspired by the sun. That brings us to this post, the last one for the month of March – the month in which spring officially arrived, one that sets us up for all the April showers… 

In keeping with this promise, here is the cheery spring thought/visual of the day: ranunculus. These flowers deserve a prettier name, though some might think ‘ranunculus’ is a gorgeous, if cumbersome, word. Personally, I don’t. They are too magnificently frilly and fancy, their petals softer and yet more voluminous than a rose. They personify the delicate beauty that spring can, at certain moments, so preciously embody. Their color is brilliant – coming in all shades of bright yellow, fiery orange, steamy scarlet, and thrilling pink, along with creams and whites for more elegant moments. They pop up sporadically in Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market, as well as the more decent florist shops, and they make great cut flowers, opening fully and staying fresh as long as they have adequate water. 

On this fourth day of spring, we celebrate the season. Pause and inhale, then let it all out. 

These spring primrose plants lit up a corner of the Faddegon’s greenhouse, heralding the season in cheery, colorful form. They are fleeting beauties, like the season they represent, and all the more beautiful for it. What doesn’t last is always loved a little bit more. 

This spring I intend to take each day as it comes, finding a little ray of hope – the essence of spring – at every turn. In this blustery stretch of March, these primrose blooms will suffice. May they cheer your day too. 

The sun came pouring in the living room the other morning, the way it does only at the end of winter, when branches are bare and the air is crisp and clear. It illuminated a simple bunch of hydrangeas, which caught the sunlight and held it there, letting it warm the spirit and the room. 

Since we’ve had a decent supply of hydrangea blooms during recent summers, I don’t think of purchasing them as cut flowers at any other time of the year, but on this particular week I craved their simplicity and easy elegance. And they reminded me of happy summer days, so I indulged. 

This is a holiday cactus without a holiday this year, as it has decided to bloom with neither Thanksgiving or Easter nearby. (I absolutely refuse to call it a St. Patrick’s Day cactus.) I’m not mad about it – these blooms are a life-giver in these despondent last weeks of winter, made so much worse by snowstorms and plunging temperatures that would have been better-received in January or February. 

This stalwart plant has been with us for about two decades, becoming a cherished friend like so many of these cactuses tend to do, and throwing out these magnificently-colored blooms in two main shows per year – once in the fall and once in the spring. The last few years have changed just about everything we thought we knew, especially those things I thought would never change; this little plant is a welcome reminder that there are some things that continue no matter what else is going on, triggered by seasonal light and set into motion by nature herself.

It seems a silly exercise to complain or be bothered by anything in this charmed existence when so much is so terribly wrong in so many other places. There is a heaviness that seems to bear down upon us all now, at least among any slightly empathetic or feeling human beings, and it’s wearing on my heart as much as anyone else’s. I wish I had the words or the power to make things just a little bit better, but I don’t know if those words exist, and if there’s anything remotely real about power, it’s not something that one person can use to actually change anyone else. Not on the inside, at least. 

All I can do is post these photos of a bouquet of sunflowers I procured for a friend’s birthday many years ago. Born in the early days of May, she personified so much of what is good in this world, so much of what I most wanted to be. She loved sunflowers, so when we met in Boston for dinner I brought her these. I wish I could remember more of that night – what we talked about, where we went to eat, what was going on in her life at the time – but it has slipped away, barely rekindled by these photos. 

She is gone now, from my life and from this world, taken too soon by cancer, yet still haunting me because we never got to say good-bye. Sunflowers remind me of her, bringing back her quick and loud laughter, her keen intelligence, her steely vulnerability. In the nodding head of a flower, I see all the good that is somehow present amid this madness, even if my friend is somewhere else. I also feel all the sadness, all the loss, and all the ways we have failed each other. Even looking into the face of the sun, it is sometimes difficult to locate the light. 

When this website first went up in the winter of 2003, the world felt a lot simpler. After almost 20 ensuing years, much has changed, but the main tenets of it have remained the same – and as I determine where it goes from here, I’m drawn back to that simple beginning. 

To that end, I’m decluttering things a bit, reducing the posting schedule (three posts a day is just too much with everything else I’m doing these days) and simplifying those posts into shorter and more succinct bites rather than sprawling multi-course meals. No one has the attention span anymore, and that includes me. 

And so, enjoy these pink tulips on a Wednesday afternoon. 

That’s all.

Arriving at this second day of March, a simple bouquet comprised of a trio of tulip blooms and a riotous little bunch of ranunculus makes for a primary triumvirate of color when backed by a blue winter sky. Hints of the seasons to come, hopes for the last winter days to tick by quickly, but not too quickly, as there is wonder and some magic in the waiting. 

When so little of the outside world feels fresh or alive, a baby bouquet like this makes all the difference. The power of a single flower can still the most formidable winter day. All the sun seems to inhabit its bright face ~ all the warmth and all the glory. 

Andy takes care of all of my Mini-Cooper’s bang-ups and bruises, sometimes with his own hands, and sometimes with a skillfully-handled phone call with the insurance company after a stone dented the windshield on I-87 during a recent trip to Amsterdam. Such an act is always appreciated, because after being on the phone during a typical day at work, doing the same thing on my off-hours would prove too unhappily awful. As thanks, I put together this bouquet of flowers to greet the month that spring returns, as Andy is getting as antsy as most of us. 

He recently floated out the idea of an early pool-opening, mostly I think to keep our minds and thoughts buoyed with the hope of a warm spring and summer, especially after last year. I’d be happy with a couple days of sun and warmth, and not ask for the moon and stars just yet. But I won’t say no to it if it happens, and as we enjoy the sun coming into the bedroom in the afternoon, we feel it linger, throwing rainbows up onto the ceiling and walls from the crystal lamp finial by the window. 

I added some bright yellow lilies to this arrangement to signal that the first month of spring is at hand, and in about twenty days we will officially be in the swing of things. Until then, let’s have a few more flower bouquets to pass the time in prettiness and gratitude.