Monday, August 31, 2009

Gorgeous Gardenia

With so many brides asking for Gardenias lately, I thought this would be a good time to look into the history of this lovely "Southern" flower.Gardenia was named for Dr. Alexander Garden, a friend of Linnaeus (who invented the system of ranking living organisms). Originally known in Europe as Cape Jasmine, the Gardenia was never an American plant. Instead, its roots travel back to South Africa,

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Say it with pink hydrangeas

Flowers speak of love, friendship, gratitude, simpathy, forgiveness, respect, gentleness... Flowers express feelings. When I send flowers, I also send my love, I send a smile on a face, and a gesture of how much I care. To see more flowers, please visit Today's Flowers, there are flowers there from all over the world that will make you smile.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Monday, August 24, 2009

Royal Florals

Royal Wedding Flowers.I recently came across a beautiful coffee-table book by Elizabeth and David Emanuel: A Dress for Diana. While I've admired Princess Diana from the start, and was fascinated with her fairy tale wedding, I never gave much thought to her wedding bouquet! This book opened my eyes to the myriad of details that went into just this one show-stopping bouquet.David and Elizabeth were

Friday, August 21, 2009

A reflection over coffee

Coffee beans I grew up in a family of coffee lovers. My grandfather planted coffee and so did my dad. Nowadays my father-in-law grows coffee, so when it comes to starting a conversation, we don't talk ask about the weather, we ask for a cup of coffee... But what do I thirst more than coffee? As a mom I want to make a difference in our children's lives and that their lives have a purpose... that

Thursday, August 20, 2009

White!

On to white today, really liking it, looks so clean against the black. Storm troper'esque! Trying to get more tornado-like images to turn out.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Perfect Wedding Flowers Bouquets 2009/2010

Perfect wedding flowers bouquets 2009/2010 style

More Flower Arranging Ideas

Now that summer is in full bloom, so to speak, you may be running out of ideas for displaying the bounty from your flower garden, especially if you are fortunate to have a large cutting garden.First, think outside the box. (Or in this case, outside the vase!) Any kind of watertight container works. Really! Even if it's not watertight, you can slip a glass inside to hold water. Just be sure to

Sunday, August 16, 2009

last week's water injections

(click on images to enlarge)I tried different water temperatures, and density's of the medium, as well as black for the first time. It's hard to see the black against the black, adds to the mysteriousness. I'm going to mix up some white and an 18% gray this week.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Floral Philately

I've loved flowers for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I also had fun paging through my uncle's stamp albums, and my favorites were always the ones with gorgeous blooms, usually from countries whose names I could barely pronounce. Little did I know that years later, I would be working with the renowned British philatelist Stephen Osborne!During those years, I handled probably millions of

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Glorious bushes

The beautiful house dated 1924 and built by Letonians who immigrated to Brazil long time ago has near the front porch this faboulous shrub called Glory bush (manaca-da-serra - Tibouchina mutabilis). The reason we visited the Lethonian colony is that we have friends there, we enjoyed some wonderful traditional food and drinks.This is my contribution to Today's Flowers this week.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Our sweet 15

Today we celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary... We feel gratitude for the blessings in our lives...

Monday, August 3, 2009

Full bloom

The holiday cactus (Schlumbergera truncata) is actually known in Brazil as May flower, because it blooms in May, when it is Fall here. I have had this plant for about 15 years. All you need to do to keep it going is to water once a week and after it blooms, when the flowers dry out, cut the end leaves, this will make the cactus grow stronger and you can use the cut leaves to propagate new

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Flowers in Crystal: Swarovski Silver Crystal

Flowers done in crystal! I've been a big fan of Swarovski Crystal for decades, but once they began introducing flowers, I was really smitten! Here's their story.In 1892 Daniel Swarovski patented a machine to cut crystal and the industry was never the same again. He moved his company from what is now the Czech Republic to Wattens, Austria, so that he could harness the power of water there. In the

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Flower Group 2009 Collection

flower group 2009 collection

A Calendar for Growing Flowers in Coastal Southern California

AUGUSTRemember, all beautiful color you see here in winter and very early spring should be planned about this time. The roots get a fine start and much of the best blooms come from this early planting. If your garden is full of mums now, and you lack room, get pony packs and transplant into 4" plastic size pots, and have inexpensive plants ready to pop into place later. If you plant directly