This is a flower arrangement made from one of every plant that's blooming (or leafing prettily) in our yard today. Minus the azaleas that got zapped in the frost last week and haven't come back enough to look good in a vase. (The gorgeous magnolia tree in the front yard also turned totally brown overnight because of the frost—I'm so glad I got a picture of it the day before!) 
The lilacs are still in the bud stage, so we have a little longer to wait for those...As an amateur floral arranger, it's thrilling to be back in a climate where I can go out my front door (or back door, or side door) and pick flowers and branches and grasses to put in an arrangement. Cut flowers are so expensive to buy, and the selection is limited to what marketers think will look good in a vase, that I pretty much gave up floral arranging for the 10 years we were in Tucson. There's only so much you can do with cholla wood and palm fronds. To have free access to tulips, daffodils, ferns, Japanese maple, and other plants that I don't even know what they are but are beautiful, is a balm to my desert-exiled soul. This is not to cast aspersions on the desert—it's gorgeous, too. Just a lot harder to put in a vase. I do miss the smell of creosote in the rain. If any of my Tucson friends would like to send me some creosote, I'd be really grateful!
1 comment:
Gorgeous! We just planted two lilac bushes this weekend so other than our one-year-old crabapple I don't have anything flowering in the yard yet. And since this was thie crabapple's first year I didn't want to risk cutting branches yet. Planning on doing some significant planting this year, though, so hopefully I'll have spring pretties next year!
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