enough already!

Just when I think I can't take it anymore, things heat up even more around here. Not literally - although our god damn cooler is on the fritz yet again and it has been in the 80's here - but figuratively - as in the flowers are just coming in off the charts. There is no time of year like now, and although I'm not the spring frolicking type (I'll keep my boots on in the grass and patiently wait for the autumn thank you) I cannot deny the excitement and energy I have for these flowers. I stay up later, wake up earlier to be with them. The tuning fork; struck. The vibrations accelerating!

So you have the bearded iris there. A fine specimen of natures awe-inspiring designs. Sexual. Let the record show that is a word I use timidly to describe a flower, but there it is I've said it. I know of few other flowers as captivating as the bearded iris. They leave me speechless.

And then there is the black lace elderberry...

also known as Sambucus nigra. A sight for sore eyes in zones 4-7. I've waited for it all year. In spring it emerges with rich black foliage and large flat, blush colored flowers. Berries suitable for wine or jam in the fall. And the most elegant cuttings for arrangements should you be so inclined to give pairing to your bearded iris, lily of the valley or early tree peonies.

The lavender variety of lily of the valley (convallaria majalis rosea) has a fragrance even more intoxicating than it's white counterpart, and though rare, is worth seeking out and spending a bit more on. I would personally would pay 15 cents a sniff. Consider setting up a roadside stand!

Stopped the truck short the other day at the sight of a gorgeous bale of pink japanese dogwood on the sidewalk in front of a vendor in the flower district.

This particular vendor is located somewhat across the tracks, but it so happens that said vendor gets the very best local product (nature works in mysterious ways) and so once a week I hurry across the avenue wincing my way through "goodmornings!" as these guys crack open Budweisers at 6:30 am and hustle flowers with the maturity of 6th graders.

Market's got all types of vendors; all sorts of personalities. The mobsters, the sheisters, the preps, the sporties...I shop these vendors differently. Sometimes I work them against each other. (I said it!) But in the end, they all get cookies at Christmas. Linzers, remember them? Come to think of it I didn't bring any to this vendor, and I feel sad about that now.

"PINK DOGWOOD!?!"

"It's sold!" he said.

"Ha! right. But I NEED IT
INEEDITINEEDITINEEDIT!"

"I can make you another one.." he said.

And that is when I saw his arms were covered in red streaks - he had spray-dyed white dogwood pink to resemble the blushing variety scarce in the market last week.
I was horrified and it must have been all over my face because running back to the truck he shouted after me with a maniacle look in his eyes -
"Time to accept it sweetheart! We're in the fantasy business!
IT'S ALL A FANTASY!!"

So there it is. Now you know that people spray paint flowers.
We live - and I participate in - to some extent - a fantasy land where people spend insane amounts of money on flowers for weddings and events; parties where there MUST be 10,000 blue hydrangea.* And when the world can't give you 10,000 stems of blue hydrangea all in one week, you buy floral grade spray paint, shake the shit out of that can, and make the white ones blue.

*I guess, I mean I don't actually know. I've never sprayed a flower. Pinecone, yes...are you judging me right now?

____

The little photo shoot I did with Nikki and Russell is up at 100 Layer Cake.

The photo above is an outtake of a shoot I did for a client who is getting a floral tattoo!

long days

You know it's wedding season, don't you? We've been gearing up for a long time. Pumping iron. Weaning ourselves from sleep and regular meals. I drink so much coffee, it's incredible. People who think coffee is bad for you?
FUCK OUTTA HERE! Mothers milk, sons.

I've been doing a lot of photo shoots also, Martha Stewart (still havn't run into her to hit her up for that $cash$, but have another chance tomorrow)

The Erie Basin shoot I did Monday with Russell, Courtney and Nicolette is so fine, I think you'll cry. Next week it will be ready. You can take a peak at Russell's tumblr.

Taught a class over the NYBG studio's last night on fragrant flowers. They have such a beautiful facility in midtown for classes, and we didn't really have to clean up, which still does not make sense to me. Still spots avaialable in the June and September classes, check it out here.

What else is new...we realized our flower cooler was electrified due to a short fuse and so we've all been getting dosed with 1000 extra volts several times a day. In addition to all the coffee, the secret to our success?

I write a lot of things in my mind to you lately. I have to show you so many incredible things; peonys obviously but also bearded iris are blooming now and lilly of the valley is looking so good...lilac, although this has been a bad year for lilac due to the draught last summer and the long winter. If you have lilac bushes, please remember they like to be pruned back right at the end of their bloom cycle. Else you'll cut off next years bud formation.

I miss writing here, and more than; that your witty responses. But all over this town brides are becoming wives, and through June that uncanny process has to be my focus. That and a few days here and there tending sheep.

Saturday, May 14th

Wedding flowers.

Clyde surveys Van Dyke Street.

tell doctor flicker...

peonies and young blueberry in the evening

need to reshoot this without so much grain i guess

lately i feel like i'm floating. I have so much to write down...but I don't even seem to have time to water my plants

who droop a little more as I run out the door.

what does the universe have to do with it?

Yesterday Eugene Wyatt and I weaned 200 lambs from their mothers. A rather chaotic exercise involving a lot of circular chasing and hoisting little lambs kicking and screaming over a fence into a separate pen never to be reunited with their mothers again.

So went the first day of my new internship at Catskill Merino Sheep Farm.

As it was, last Saturday on a whim I stopped for some River Garden daffodils (positively sumptuous creamsicle varieties) at the Union Square Green Market. Like a mirage I saw across the asile a rainbow of naturally dyed wool skeins. Rather sleep deprived, and wearing acyrlic (the horror!) I stumbled over without thinking - mumbling about my dog, my interest in the ovine arts, and my willingness to shovel shit in exchange for experience. Sometimes things just work out.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to learn something new, and especially for the chance to be out of my element for a day. I am thankful to my girls for allowing me to split town on a nutty whim, leaving them in the wake of mothers day orders and the daily pandemonium that is Saipua. And I am thankful that sheep, unlike people, tend to forget the trauma of separation rather quickly, bowing their heads down to the soft sweet pasture grass that is rather elegantly dubbed the spring flush.

Happy mother's day, see you on the other side of this crazy weekend...

Free Flower Friday

Hello! It's that time. Asheley and Deanna reporting to you live in the studio, bringing you our favorite part of the week: Free Flower Friday!

Comment to enter, leave your e-mail, we hope you win!

a waste

[A little practice arrangement from yesterday with akebia vine, hellebores and pulsatilla]

dream diary;

First lets get the record straight; I don't nap.

Never a napper. Tried it a few times. Didn't like it. You don't get much done napping.

I'd rather have a coffee.

Which is what i should have done today at 1:30 pm instead of shaking off my boots and diving head first into bed.

Have you ever had a lucid dream? I've had them a few times; always when napping in the middle of the day. It's a dream you can completely control..

When you're lucky enough to have a dream like this it's generally advisable to find Clive Owen right away or take flight at the helm of a F14 tomcat. You don't want to be reincarnated as John Goodman and be sitting in a board room at Warner Bros. having an argument with your agent as I was today.

That's all.

little wedding at frankies

from this past weekend. sifting through images today getting ready to redo the portfolio on the website. its such a long process. and i hate processes, i want everything right away!

tired of negotiating about money. money is boring!

i was at the Martha Stewart offices the other day, and secretly i was hoping to run into Martha herself. because if i did i would ask her to please give me $150,000 for some big projects i'm getting into. i mean, why shouldn't she?