Primrose

I'm pushing primroses because I bought one for $1.67 + tax. (I tweeted the photo but it's not worth posting here.) You cannot beat that with a stick. It will make you feel better, I promise. For some other ideas, here's my "do not toss out all holiday decorations" exhortation on GG. I'm sitting here looking at fluffy pink poinsettia flowers in a ceramic mustard jar. A stylist would charge many monies for that, I am certain. Cost to me: $3.99 6 weeks ago for the local poinsettia & I don't know how much for the jar. But the mustard was excellent.

I'm always looking for inspiration so if you have any, please let me know. I'm enjoying the IKEA blog, btw. (You can translate it if you like.) The photograph is by Teresa at Meadowbrook Farm, another new-to-me blog I'm enjoying.

Hyacinth

My flower obsession is in full, um, flower. (Forgive me.) I have approximately one million things to do but I just spent many minutes looking at & for information on antique bulb glasses. I didn't find everything I wanted but there's always this afternoon/evening. There is actually an organization called Hyacinth Vases & it has many pretty photographs.

Kevin Lee Jacobs blogs for Garden Home Design; he has a good step-by-step for a variety of spring bulbs (& also many lovely photographs). I just realized I probably won't be able to grow the hyacinth as I don't have a spare fridge (I used to - it was very useful). So. Another plan. I hope everyone is having a good week...we're coasting down to the weekend as of noon (EST).

(photograph by Kevin Lee Jacobs)

Fragmented Flowers

Singaporean photographer Fong Qi Wei went deeper than just taking photos of flowers and created an amazing series of Exploded Flowers – images that show the radial symmetry of flowers.--from DeMilked (via Illusion)

A lovely & clever art project. See the entire series, here.

I had these on GG blog but I really like them so now they're here....and...I just noticed that I still have on nightclothes. Oops. *Damn you, Twitter*

Tulip Mood

In a tulip mood & this photograph via Tokketok Letterpress blog appealed to me ages ago. It just didn't go with the bright pink & white on today's Giulia Geranium post. BTW, Tokketok has some nice card sets. Icy cold rain here. Trying to get a photograph of Julie doing something other than sleeping--she is a lively girl. But as I said, "icy rain." Still in robe & worrying that I will turn into a female Dude. (See design*sponge's Living In today.)

Update - Sunday evening, 23 Jan. I'll be back shortly. Freezing cold, crazy spammers, etc. On positive note, my Pittsburgh Steelers just won a big game. I know, I wouldn't think me a football person either. My grandfather's team will always be my team. xo. Susan

Dior-chid

"Poetic Illusions" Illustrations by Mats Gustafson. I saw an orchid at my neighborhood market that looked like this (if you squint). Yes, I'm goofing off more than usual. (Vogue China, December 2010) Via the Fashion Spot, on Vintage Rose Garden)

Keep the Peace on Thanksgiving

...are you fighting yet? Wait a few hours...it's early. If someone is getting on your nerves, picking a fight, get outta there. I mean out of the house/apt. Even if it's your place. Take a walk & look for materials to make centerpieces, wreaths, swags, or little art installations. If you come up short on the flower-y/greenery/berry front head on to a market. Most of them have floral foam & wire if you want to make a more formal centerpiece arrangement. (Beg for a little bit of foam or wire, if that's what you really want. Of course, offer to pay.)

I saw some pretty Lady apples, Seckel pears, & teeny white pumpkins a few days ago for little money. Arrange on large platter or plate (runner/large placemat/tablecloth/pillowcase), tuck in sprigs of holly (or pine) the neighbor gave you, search your cupboards for a bag of whole nuts that are now, I assure you, stale. Arrange.

Personally, I like Emily Thompson's delicate wreaths & have made similar for years & endured teasing by unimaginative people with scads of cash. A dangerous combination. If all else fails, garland thyself. A crown implies power beyond words. Most people are not going to pick on someone wearing a crown (it would seem especially in America from all the breathless Royal Wedding Reports on the evening news). All of these ideas work for any holiday, in any country. But for fellow Americans & their guests, a special happy Thanksgiving from Julie the Cat & her obedient servant.

Here's the link to Design*Sponge labels Thanksgiving & flowers. (images via Design*Sponge)

Flowers on the Windowsill

Wouldn't you know that all the photographs I have for essay-drafts, poems, Venice & Strasbourg posts are b&w? Of course. Things are fairly dark/grim here lately. So...some flowers on windowsills by Christine Gill via Design*Sponge in November 2008. I ran two photos on Giulia Geranium back then. My family & friends laughed at me for doing exactly this. I'm off to read, write, figure out administrative matters (urgh), & swipe some rose hips that are about to be cruelly cut down before fulfilling their destiny. Christine sells 21 flower prints at Imagekind. (She also has a December 2008 photo set of her then-new cat's introduction to the household. He's a dignified gentleman in a tuxedo.)

Are we about to go nuclear? Right now WAMU-FM/NPR has gone off the air & the Naval Observatory Master Clock/Universal Time is repeating the universal time over & over in a computer-generated voice. [Five minutes later- Now a rattled sounded announcer has come on to say, oops, we do not know what the heck that was about. We'll look into it. You do that. It was way weird & disturbed my cat. Now, Kevin Spacey is making a joke about it. At the tone, the time will be...that made me laugh, so thank you, Kevin.]

Fresh Flowers for Tough Times

For those of us residing in the State of Penury, here is an excellent idea by Sarah of Blossom and Branch, via Design*Sponge. It's a definite upgrade from our parsley-in-a-creamer. This is Sarah's second post in a twice-a-month series, Flowers A-Z. Take a look, you might be surprised by the ingredients.

That is from Julie's site today. I loved this idea so much that I scooped it up & placed over here. A relief from the gray & watery rumination chez nous.

I've looked on-line but not in the shops for prices per bunch/stem. I sniffed by them in the market in years past. My bad. It's very much bricolage in the French usage sense. Scent memories of cycling & walking past fields of decaying brassica on the outskirts of Strasbourg might have something to do with my aversion. I don't think that classy Design*Sponge would have anything on their site if that were the case. We shall see.

Tutu & Blue Asters

Every flower has a history and every flower symbolizes something. Often the history and symbols are confusing and contradictory but they are still fascinating. If your birthday is in the month of September, your flower is the aster. Here is the story and language of your flower.

The Latin name for the aster is Aster, which literally means star. The association with stars, clearly references the flower’s shape. While we no longer use the word aster to refer to stars, we still use words that use the root aster in words with related meanings. The word asterisk literally means ‘little star,’ while the word disaster refers to something that occurred under a bad omen or something that was ‘ill-starred.’

The colloquial names for the aster are starwort and Michaelmas daisy. (From Suite101 by Melissa Howard)

(Blue aster by zizzy via flickr)

Odour of Chrysanthemums

The short story title popped into my muddled mind a few hours ago. Snipping herbs & flowers, snapping off a few small vegetables (where I'm house/cat sitting), I sensed a change. Of course, it is late summer & it will be too hot for some time yet. I usually welcome the nearly imperceptible shift, the flip of the switch, to a new season. Not today, though, for all sorts of complicated reasons.

But what-ho? (Too much Jeeves & Wooster this summer. I'll be saying 'pip pip' soon.). A new mini-crisis on the literal horizon to divert me. (That's a good thing.) The entertaining birds in the back garden have cleverly timed the emptying of their feeders for this very moment--oh thanks les oiseaux. Now I'll be awake all night if I can't fill them before I collapse from fatigue (which I am about to do). Oh woe.

Strasbourg-of-the-past is what this twaddle above is about. Some of it anyway. Can you see why I drone on about the-rest-of-France & I-love-Alsace, just from that photograph? I hope so. Paris is grand, yes, but it is not the whole country.

[Strasbourg by thexmunichxromance via deviantArt & for good measure, another flower lady via style(dot)com archives]

Week's End - Italian Flowers

These flowers will prevent a cascade of photographs of blue dresses, Cary Grant, Mad Men characters, & other faiblesses. (Yes, I am working on Italian Stuff, anyway.) The Design*Sponge post prompted me to look up from the laptop. There on the desk is the same terracotta planter thingy & I have a glass bottle inside. So if I can totter up to the farmer's market (near Chompie the Shark, see below) tomorrow, I will do my poor-writer version.

Design*Sponge has inspired me to do several smart things this last year. (No small achievement, believe me.) A few recent ones: finally, fer cryin' out loud buy the missing manual for a sewing machine; rescue a (fake) wrought iron plant stand in a laundry room; refrain from tossing out an entire bed because surely something can be done with the headboard. I bought the terracotta all on my own because I love plant pots. Now, I'll get a ton of spam with those words in it; sorry suckers, I have tight spam control alerts on.

Have a great weekend, wherever you are (& where are you, anyway?)

[flowers via Design*Sponge, many more--including Italian travel pix]

A Planet Without Flowers

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.--Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Not Murdoch's finest book, but she's so damned quotable. Very sorry to see secret-lover-for-thirty-years stories rising to the top in a quick Iris search. I thought cream rose to the top. Blech. (In March, I'm not linking to any.) Can no one keep their mouth shut anymore? Swine.

Photograph of Gemma Ward by Steven Meisel for Vogue 2006. It's via my crummy scanner (now deceased) but I see that it's in more than a few tumblrs, here. More photos from the Vogue 2006 editorial are in dustjacket attic.

Prowling for Flowers

It grew late. Through the open door, stealthily, came the scent of madonna lilies, almost as if it were prowling abroad.
--D.H. Lawrence

Well, close enough, though these aren't madonnas. They are Casablanca lilies on sale at White Flower Farm. I recently purchased a White Flower Farm 100-daffodil naturalizing kit for a friend & her husband's first anniversary. The bulbs will be shipped when planting time arrives. Meanwhile, today's White Flower Farm email highlighted these scented lilies & I can't resist showing them. I hope to resist buying any.

As a child, I was inordinately proud that my name means 'lily' in every language in which it appears. I was flower-mad from birth. My mother received a phone call from a neighbor at early dusk in late summer. Do you know where she is? She's naked in Mrs. N's rose garden. Uh oh. They split up & cornered me (I was a fast runner, even for 4 years old). I remember a thorn in my little paw--I blamed them (I must have been drunk on scent, to be so cheeky). As they rudely interrupted my communion with flowers, I'd clamped my fist around the (very few!) roses I'd pinched. My neighbor apologized for frightening me. My mother was annoyed, as one did not apologize to a child for anything. In her world, anyway. She said I was a bee in a former life. Or a dolphin. I wish she'd make up her mind.

If you have any room in your garden - you're lucky & here's the link to White Flower Farm. I've never had a thing go wrong with anything I've purchased from them. (I used to have a garden.) Many people shriek & say, the prices. Yes, well, you get what you pay for in these matters. (E.g., perfume)

[flower images via White Flower Farm]

Poppies in July

(Photograph by Olga via flickr)

Update - and now I can't OK comments. It just won't work, so thanks. I'm sorry. Let's see how long Blogger takes to fix it. If ever.

Lunatic on Bulbs

Well, that's what she said. (Emily Dickinson). I'm preoccupied with gardens, the lack of one, & so on lately/always. Tiger lilies mean something to me (& to Miss D), these illustrations were in a folder, & I finally read this NYTimes article Emily Dickinson's Garden at the New York Botanical Gardens. It's on through 12 June. G'night.

[botanical image via Ray Allen's wildflowergardening.wordpress.com; second image Flora's Feast, a Masque of Flowers by British illustrator Walter Crane; third, guess who?]

Week's End - Floralia/Country Girl

Mother of flowers, Flora, present be, / We raise the chant midst jocund games to thee. / Begun in April, unto May deferred, / For both are thine, the jocund song is heard/Upon the confines of both months we stand/Embellished with the bounties of thy hand.--Ovid (sexy devil)

Update: I'm editing the mess that was this post. Enjoy the images. (Saturday, 3 July 2010)

Flower Bracelets

Michael Ondaatje's The Time Around Scars (If I ever find a link that doesn't have tons of weird pop-ups, I'll include it) is open on a table nearby & for buried reasons, I thought of this photograph already in my cache. But I love gloves, flowers, the facial expression of the woman as she looks at/past the photographer (Nina Leen, via LIFE archives). Lovers of The English Patient should read Ondaatje's extraordinary poems.There are some YouTube links to a few of his readings if you're interested. Marvellous voice. Good night.

In Ombra - Monday Blues

In ombra is (in the shade) in Italian. Two more beautiful shots by Olga. Now, I'm going to go lie down & see if the world is a little better after that. As ever, I ask to be allowed my delusions. If you are part of the Twitterati, please go to juliethecat & follow or tell me to follow you. I'm pretty easy that way. I need to build a bit of a following so that I can harangue people in 140 characters about upcoming events. I'll try to be entertaining.

Other matter at hand, yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day (& there was a lovely PBS production of Anne Frank's Diary on last night; it shall be repeated, don't miss it. This production--no offense to others--is when I finally thought: That's Anne, the writer). April 11-18 are the Days of Remembrance. Here's the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with activities & online virtual stuff if you're not here in DC. This year's theme is an elaboration on last year's (What You Do Matters). This year: Stories of Freedom: What You Do Matters. Here's last year's Giulia Geranium post on what would have been Anne's 80th birthday in June. Darling photograph of Anne & Margot at the beach.

With gratitude to Olga for her generosity.

ciao

Week's End - Beneath the Sun

When you see me
Fly away without you
Shadow on the things you know
Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go
It's over, it's over.-Birds, After the Gold Rush

Yes, I will stop with the songs & photographs that don't seem to go at all. Soon. It's a self-imposed pressure. And another gust of wind (metaphorically) just about blew me over. Back with silliness (I hope) on the weekend.

[Beautiful photograph by English writer/photographer Susannah Conway. Visit her at Ink on My Fingers.]

Week's End - The Writing on the Wall

Gorgeous Amsterdam wall. Civilized, eh? So unlike here. Going to the market was like running a gauntlet in edgy & angry Washington. Making phone calls on behalf of the health care bill was enough to make me lose my appetite. Georgetown's shocking NCAA loss has not helped. OK, inside baseball. Uh, basketball. Sheesh. Big sigh & ciao for the weekend. I'll be by to visit....

PS: Don't forget to visit The Plum Plum shop. I received the notebook on Monday--it's so lovely.

[photograph via non-profit City photos]