The Minimalist Guide to Transcendence

Floral arranging, what a bore.  Another line of thought, transmogrified.  Humorous, now floral arranging a desire, I have no skill at floral arranging.  Yet thought I did, during the decades it was a 'bore', yet never created floral arrangements.
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Innate arrogance?  Much?
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No budget for 'bought' stems/flowers.  Nor a belief in that trade, too harsh on the environment.  Stems, branches, browse.  My own property, or side of the road in the mowing zones.
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Pic, above, here.
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Floral arrangements, above, below, need no skill to arrange.
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Add clear glass marbles to the base of your pots.  Bags of them.  They're at most dollar stores.  They'll keep your stems/branches where you want them.
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Pic, above, here.
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Use Felco pruners, slight angle when clipping.  Once arranging, cut stem again, pound lightly with backside of pruner, at base of stem at fresh cut.  The stems will take up water more easily.
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Pic, above, here.
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A magnolia is on our property, its branches easy to arrange.
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With heavy arrangements, below, make sure your pots have fat bottoms.  Saw this magnolia arrangement, below, and first glanced down to the bottom of its vase.  It's fine.  Any narrower, and the whole thing would tip over if a cat brushed past.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Roadside browse, above.  Don't know if it is, but this is what my roadside browse arrangements look like.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Another option, above, for large arrangements inside.  The winter begonia or geranium.  Their promise of summer, with touches of winter's etiolation, a solid metaphor.  How are you taking yours, the metaphor?  Me?  I've grown longer to survive, but the season will change again, and I'll change with it.
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How many centuries of painters have captured exquisitely the etiolated potted plant inside at winter?
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Layers of goodness flow from these acts.  Detachment, transcendence, in the doing.  Enjoyment of the deed, for weeks.
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Aesthetics are not separable from truth & goodness, Sir Roger Scruton writes.  There is a beauty bias in Nature, and us.  Doing these arrangements, I am humbled at more than their beauty, their work of Providence.  Interwoven lives. 
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Before me, and after me, the same stems and branches will continue their work, drawing others with their goodness and truth.   Telling their stories.  Humorous, and a relief.
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Pic, above, here.
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From there, it's into the well trod path of a theological terroir.  If you're paying attention.  Once you do, you've joined a tribe, thousands of years old.  Same vein Rick Warren hit, "It's not about you."
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Bee to the flower.
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My urge to make these arrangements, no different.
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A large glass bottle, found at the dump, a couple of twigs cut from the roadside, placed inside, with prominence. Transcendence.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

What Georgia O'Keefe Can Teach Us About Happiness

"I do not like the idea of happyness------it is too momentary-----I would say that I was always busy & interested in something-----interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happyness."  Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Seeking happiness, to me, "It is the shrewdness of the fox after the chicken.  A low order of mentality often goes with it."  Sherwood Anderson.
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Within my core tribe none seek happiness, yet they are the happiest souls I know.  This is hindsight.
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Pic, above, here.
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Plants in the house, flowers in vases, an awakened joy.  Perhaps it's leaving my 30 year garden, and 3 years later our ca. 1900 home is still under basic construction: pond, dams, roads, drainage, well, irrigation, house renovations, gravel, shade trees, sheds, etc.
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A tipping point was reached, happily, last month when he asked, "Are we living in a greenhouse?".
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Something I know, for sure, about the vase, above, if it is narrow, in addition to wide, it's a magic vase.  Needs fewer flowers, and the shape helps put the arrangement together.  Zero clue to that fact, until this phase of life.
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Pic, above, here.
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An old conceit, above, new to me, from The Land Gardeners.   Dig a clump of bulbs, plop into container, poof, flowers for the house.  White planter, above at back, easily found junking.  How many times have you passed them by, and at 75 cents probably.  Once done, bulbs go back in the ground whence they came, no guilt. 
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Pic, above, here.
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Recognizing the 'line', above, in the floral arrangement.  Great satisfaction in 'knowing' about the 'line'.  Line?  Bottom left daisy, to the top right daisy, thicker in the middle.
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Works in reverse, below.  Line top left into thick middle ending bottom right.  Creates a natural look, gardenesque.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Another 'line', above.  Didn't discover this line, found it in a book, bought almost 2 decades ago, not read until this year.   
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Pic, above, here.
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Quite saucy, wit, above, using the 'line'.  In a layer of prescience, I've bought pretty vases at estate sales since the 80's.  Crazy, zero time, zero talent, until this year's epiphany.  Why add this to my life?  A hunger for the 'doing' and greater hunger for the flowers in the house, life.
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On the floor, below, pure joy.  Signs of life lived.  A mess to be swept?  Therein lies the privilege, and thanks.  Stewardship & joy. 
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Pic, above, here.
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Our ca. 1900 home came with 2 kitchens.  The back kitchen we've turned into laundry, cat-ery, and most recently, floral arranging room.  Happy chaos.  Magic room with door to living room, back deck, and Jack/Jill bathroom.  Beside the fridge, an old majolica umbrella holder with a variety of brooms & mops.  Well used. 
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Happy.
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A local farmer's market is nearby, must get my Ivy Topiaries into more homes.  Not every market Saturday, but several.  For fun. 

Pic, above, here.
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"...the object drawn doesn't matter so much.  It's what you feel about it, what it means to you."  Sherwood Anderson.
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Happy.
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"Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant---there is no such thing.  Making your unknown known is the important thing---and keeping the unknown always beyond you..."  Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

Bringing the Garden Inside

Totally had the garden I wanted in my 30 year previous home.  Excepting it was too small to cut for the house.  Now, in our historic 1900 American farmhouse, space allows plantings, specifically for cutting.
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Yesterday in the car there was time for a conversation I've waited all my adult life to have.  Told Beloved I wanted 2-3 forsythia, specifically for cutting.  Quince too.  Those are the no brainers.  Space to plant them, and cut on them, yet siting them as-if-natural.  Where we buy them, will hunt/gather for other plantings specifically for cutting, groundcovers, trees, deciduous/evergreen shrubs, all are fair game for cutting.    
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Pic, above, here.

Bulbs, below, I'll force in pots.  Using plastic pots, for ease, and slipping them into terra cotta for the house.  When I worked as a professional grower, bulbs that did not sell by the end of fall, we potted up, setting them outside in the woodland, in a cold frame with asbestos sides.  Will use old windows for my cold frame, already gathered.



Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.



Pic, above, here.

Containers, above/below, fascinate me.  Would never have thought to use either in this manner, yet both are perfect.  Designing gardens, yes.  Floral arranging?  Not so much.  A skill set I don't have. Delightful lying to myself, you-can-do-this.  If it's really important to get the cut flowers arranged, I have a back up plan.  Take a picture, send to my friend Susanne Hudson, she can tell me what to do to fix it.

 

Pic, above, here.

I'm not naive enough to think the cut stems, above/below, just 'happened'.  Skill.  Pure skill.

 

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

Our potager is getting more/more 'done' and will be ready for zinna seeds next spring, above.  Have been collecting wide range of buckets, containers for flowers, stems, bulbs.  For decades.  Muse must have known I would move.  



Pic, above, here.

Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades I especially liked the mixed garden arrangement, above.  Tours usually included tea/scones, and the owner typically made the mixed garden arrangement that morning.  I was moth to a flame with them.  And, the flower arranging room where they were created as desirable as the flowers.
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Cecil Beaton's flower arranging room, below.  Our old farmhouse has 2 kitchens, with the lesser kitchen at the back of the house.  We've already turned it into a large laundry room, with plenty of space left, for my flower arranging.  


 

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

I like a bit of a pitiful touch, above, to flowers for the house.  If Susanne had done the flowers, below, for me, I would say, "Make them a bit more pitiful."  She'd do it to perfection, then we'd oooooh/aaaaah about how perfectly beautifully pitiful they are.  It's important to know, and revel, in your oeuvre no matter what others may think.  A touch pitiful, my oeuvre for cut flowers.  Not to be confused with the wonk factor.

 

Pic, above, here.

A bit pitiful, below.  Aren't they perfect?

 

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

Been buying old white cracked chipped ironstone for eons.  Pic, above, a tutorial about planting bulbs 'pitifully'.
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Cuttings from the garden & forced bulbs, put together a touch pitifully.  Odd what makes a person feel rich.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT