Over the past year, we have noticed an increasing presence of floral crown designs represented in social media, floral newsletters, blogs and websites.

These over-the-top crowns by Passionflower in Ann Arbor, MI are both gorgeous displays for a lovely summer day!

A ward-winning contemporary artist and Syracuse University art professor Sam Van Aken grew up on a family farm in Reading, Pennsylvania, but he spent his college years and much of his early career focused on art rather than agriculture.

While Van Aken says that his work has always been “inspired by nature and our relationship to nature,” it wasn’t until recently that the artist’s farming background became such a clear and significant influence, first in 2008 when he grafted vegetables together to create strange plants for his Eden exhibition, and then shortly after that when he started to work on the hybridized fruit trees that would become the Tree of 40 Fruit.

It is interesting about the daisy.  Many people adore them and consider them fun, refreshing and charming.  Others consider them less than quality “filler” flowers.  Our florists have found a wonderful alternative!

During summer months, try asking for Chamomile or Feverfew blossoms!

Delightful!

Margot Shaw, Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Flower magazine chronicles the day-to-day activities of a busy flower girl.

Visit www.flowermag.com/prim-rose to purchase your copy!

Betsy Bloomingdale, affectionately known as “Good Queen Betts”, a life long resident of Los Angeles, is well known for philanthropy, style and grace.  In the Aug 2014 issue of Town & Country, her close friend Alex Hitz offers a glimpse into the celebrated lady’s love of flowers.

“Betsy Bloomingdale’s rose garden is reached through vine-covered gates, past an allee of meticulously trimmed hedges and cypress trees.  I call it her secret garden, because it’s set off to the side of her Holmby Hills compound….

Betsy’s fine hand and love of flowers are alive in every room of the house – the orchids, just so, on the grand piano, those exquisite dahlias and roses the size of cat heads in silver or porcelain bowls throughout the library and breakfast room….  The rose garden isn’t there just for show, though it is my favorite in Los Angeles; it’s a cutting garden for the Hybrid Tea roses and Ball dahlias that decorate the lovely rooms inside the house, whether there’s company or not.”

Vanessa Birley‘s love of nature and in particular flowers, began many years ago in her parents’ garden in Surrey. Keen to help out, she would keenly pick whatever flowers she could get her hands on (without her dad seeing) and bring them into the house.

Her love of coloring became transfixed for some years with doodle-art, and she gained her BA degree in interior design from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Working with color, texture, pattern and design has instilled in her a passion for conveying her ideas in the form of beautifully made paintings and soft furnishings.

German architect André Broessel, of Rawlemon, has looked into his crystal ball and seen the future of renewable energy. In this case it’s a spherical sun-tracking solar energy-generating globe — essentially a giant glass marble on a robotic steel frame. But this marble is no toy. It concentrates both sunlight and moonlight up to 10,000 times — making its solar harvesting capabilities 35 percent more efficient than conventional dual-axis photovoltaic designs.

Floral Designer Simon Lycett rocked the world with gorgeous florals of the British Garden Pink, and delivered delicious arrangements good enough to eat, for British Flowers Week at New Covent Garden.

Modern garden pinks belong to the dianthus family of plants which are native to the mountains of Europe and Asia.

The Greek botanist Theophastus (371-287 BC) gave the dianthus it’s name: dios meaning divine and anthus meaning flower.

Pinks have been cultivated for hundreds of years, since before the time of Elizabeth I.  Pinks were known as feathered gillyflower in the 16th century.  They are referenced by Shakespeare in a Winter’s Tale.

Fascinating!  It seems that pink meaning flower predates pink meaning color!