Week 14, as we revisit the 10-year anniversary of the book, Slow Flowers
I loved this arrangement, inspired by a gift from Lorene Edwards Forkner — a huge bundle of Kerria japonica from her garden. That’s the unusual flowering shrub with olive-green branches, tiny variegated leaves, and buttercup-like flowers that eventually open when forced indoors come early spring. For the original design, I paired them with flowering quince (Chaenomeles x superba) and I absolutely loved how the coral flowers and yellow flowers danced in the morning light of my east-facing Seattle window.
This week, the natural light is not cooperating. With a forecast for days of rain, the flat, gray light was not kind to my new arrangement, designed on Saturday, April 8th, Easter weekend. I decided to delay photography and posting for a few days, hoping for two things: (1) better light; and (2) indoor warmth to coax the buds open. Lorene has a new Kerria and while she gifted me some of their delicate branches, they were not sizeable enough for my design. So they are living in a smaller vase all by themselves for my enjoyment.
While at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market on Friday, I checked out the options among locally-harvested ornamental branches. Two candidates not only caught my eye — flowering almond from Charles Little & Co. and flowering plum from Ojeda Farms — they seemed compatible for my new vase, a modern metal urn from Restoration Hardware, purchased five or six years ago.
