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Mixing and matching from nature’s
goodness…all year round
The florist’s cooler is full of gorgeous
blooms and exotic foliage. To help you keep your cool, Lamont offers suggestions
for your favorite seasonal celebrations:
St. Patrick’s Day
Four-leaf clovers automatically come to
mind. Go with it. Group shamrocks or oxalis plants (they’ve got shamrock-shaped
leaves but later send up demure pink and white flowers) in a whimsical
container. Festoon with a St. Paddy’s Day ribbon or a leprechaun
pick.
Easter
For an arrangement that’s unique,
easy and trendy, plant wheat grass in a lined terra cotta container or
low basket. Fill the container with soil, sprinkle the sprout-like seeds
thickly across, cover with another 1/2-inch of soil and water according
to package directions. In three days, you’ll have 2-3 inches of grass.
It can be trimmed with scissors. Decorate with Easter eggs.
Tulips make a simple, graceful year-round centerpiece. Select a single
hue or a rainbow of colors and let them drape around your vase. Enhance
their beauty with gold or copper wire-ribbon bows.
Mother’s Day
The bunched look -- a tussy-mussy style
bouquet of the same, often delicate flower capture in a gorgeous container
-- is really in. Clump pansies in a really tight bouquet and place in
tea cups. Put one at each place setting. If Mom prefers a particular flower,
search for a special container -- porcelain, terra cotta, silver plate.
For greens, consider low, curling silver dollar eucalyptus or lady’s
mantle, which goes great with purple flowers.
From Memorial Day to Labor Day
It’s time to garden, and geraniums
are a terrific choice for outdoor parties. Plant them in a unique, attention-getting
pot that you can use long after the party’s wrapped up.
For a traditional Fourth of July feast, gather red carnations, white daisies
and delphinium in a heavy white container.
Sunflowers with cut ornamental grasses and zinnias in a range of shades
are other summertime fallbacks.
Halloween and Thanksgiving
Use pumpkins, gourds and squash as containers
as well as decorations. Trace a hole around your liner -- a butter crock
or a votive glass, for example -- and hollow it out with a kitchen knife.
Insert the liner and fill with water. Cut autumn leaves, harvest sunflowers,
use berry hypericum or crocosmia (like freesia with bright orange buds
and arrange. Create an eye catching mix with grapes, artichokes, broccoli,
apples…keeping the play of shapes and colors in mind. Trail grapes,
artichokes and leaves down the center of the table.
Christmas
For the easiest play of green and red,
plant ivies in low containers. Minutes before the party, insert red roses
in aqua picks (available at your florist; water throughout the day to
preserve freshness).
Take advantage of all of the greens available around the holidays. Southern
cedar, fur and blue spruce mingle with your own backyard cuttings to create
arrangements with intriguing shapes and textures. Intersperse roses (red,
white or copper-colored Leonidas), holly, pepper berries for color. Or
consider fruit: grapes, pears or even realistic artificials.
Other occasions
Stock, which grows in a palette from pale
creamy yellow to a deep, dark purple, roses and delphinium come together
beautifully any time of year. Freesia is a fragrant answer to any gathering,
too. As fillers, use caspia or limonium.
Dried flowers
Follow the same basic rules as you would
for fresh arrangements. Gather a variety of shapes, sizes and colors.
Think dried roses, lavender or larkspur against a base of silver dollar
eucalyptus, caspia and grasses.
[Source: Marie Lamont, owner, The Plant
Cellar, Bethel, CT. 203 744 0691]
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