Addicted and any way I can get it, pulling it together...

     When I don't have much of a garden, I find other ways to feed my addiction of having beautiful plants around me. Usually that consists of having houseplants or by way of making arrangements.  Stuffing the window box on my London terrace was one way to guarantee blooms or foliage to cut and bring inside.  It is my duty to keep fresh greens on the table at all times, regardless of the time of year.

    Another option was going to the Columbia Road Flower Market in East London. By getting there late one day, I found out certain stalls drastically mark down their prices, trying to get rid of their merchandise rather than having to pack it up again. For just 5 pounds I walked away with 12 individual bouquets one day, that I later used to mix and create my own arrangements. Orange roses, white carnations and cream Gerber daisies. ( I didn't even like some of these flowers! Carnations ?! Never, but I realized they last so long as a cut flower and now I respect them in a new found way..)

  

While doing work in other gardens I will salvage things that are heading for the compost pile and use them at home. Lichen covered Azalea branches, some moss from my terrace, and a single Galanthus nivalis bulb in bloom, just a little bit of woodland inside.

Fatsia japonica is another plant that I never really cared for, looking messy and out of place in the garden, but when I saw the fruits I felt the need to do something with them.  Muscari armeniacum (from the window box), Tiarella 'Crow'  (from the window box) and Fatsia japonica.

 

Even single arrangements grouped together of Euonymus fortunei 'Blondy' and Helleborus blooms works for me.

 

Another addiction is ceramics and vases, which I find anywhere, but that's another story..  When I found this one, reminiscent of a loaf of bread, in a Paris flea market, I knew this was my keepsake memory to stuff into my suitcase and take home. Thank goodness it didn't break. 

  

 For lunch with friends I filled it with a plethora of Viola blooms from the window box. They added a nice scent once brought inside and now reminded me of a 50's swimming cap.

And here was a favorite I called " The Canary and the Lion"

The yellow pom-pom like blooms and foliage of the tree Acacia dealbata and the foliage of Begonia rex, which I had as a houseplant.  Don't underestimate those houseplants, make them work for their money!

 An arrangement that I look forward to doing again is Dahlia 'Chat Noir' (picked up the tubers from the Columbia Road Flower Market and grown on my terrace in the window box), and mixed them with dark blue glaucous grapes (supermarket!), which sit on one very large leaf of Begonia rex. These arrangements give me such pleasure, acting as living sculptures that give off a certain sense of mood.

Viennese cafe? Apple strudel anyone?

Mexican mood? Dahlia 'Helga' and a tiny burro? Homage to Frida Kahlo? Maybe?!

Doing flowers used to intimidate me because I felt they never looked "right" and now I don't care, and that is when I started really enjoying it and it became fun.

Whether it's a color story, texture, mood, scent, it doesn't matter,  it gives great pleasure from the start

until

the end.
To the those affected by Sandy in the U.S.,  you are in my thoughts.......xoxoxo