Monica's Cool Blue Wedding

The campus of Linfield College was once again the backdrop for a summer wedding. I thought Monica's cool blue shades were the perfect counterpoint for the hot day. We tucked the arch into the shade to protect the flowers from the heat. It was later moved to the head of the aisle and vows were said under the arch.
Monica's bouquet used blue hydrangea, lady's mantle and nigella from our gardens. Nigella is also known as love-in-a-mist. Great name for a wonderful little flower! (Some people are familiar with it's seed pod, used a lot in dried flower arrangements. When dried, it's know as old-man-in-a-beard!)

Kristin's Garden Wedding

The rain finally cleared and Kristin had a beautiful sunny day for her wedding in her dad's garden. The garden was lovely, and featured some of the same local flowers that I had used in Kristin's bouquets.
There was a bit of a vintage theme, brought out in the use of her grandmother's handkerchiefs. Kristin told me she remembered wrapping her dolls in these hankies when she was little. What a nice way to bring fond memories of Grandma to your wedding day!
In addition to an all-natural garden look, Kristin's inspiration was the colors of the sunset. She loved the idea of pods and berries mixed in. I was especially excited about finding the sea holly and the scabiosa seed heads. You can see both in the bridal bouquet. And - yes - that's another handkerchief in the bridal bouquet!
One of the unique things about Kristin's wedding is that our first meeting was only three days before the wedding! It was all done via pictures and through her wedding coordinator. She was really happy that we had hit her look so right on!

Peony Season!

Gail created this charming piece in a ceramic dish to celebrate peony season. Oregon-grown peonies are beautiful!
Unfortunately, local peony season is coming to a close. They're a prized wedding flower (currently "in vogue") and will continue to be available imported from outside the local area. We love them wherever they come from, but feel especially blessed to live where we have access to such lovely locally-grown flowers.

A New Tradition?

Orchid leis are becoming a must-have for local high school graduations. I know this tradition is imported from Hawaii where leis are layered many deep for special days. Is this something that is happening elsewhere - or just on the West Coast?
We have leis available for graduations this weekend. They're made from white orchids and sonia orchids (a purple/white bicolor) - and are really beautiful!

For many years I have created large garden bouquets for the graduation ceremony at Linfield College. I believe it's my favorite job of the entire year! (And the bonus this year was watching my daughter graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.)

Some of these flowers came from my own garden. The foxglove is almost a tradition in these arrangements since it seems to bloom for full show on graduation day. The tall irises and hot pink centranthus are also from my yard.

This was the second showing for these pieces, having been used the previous evening for the Baccalaureate Service. It rained for the Commencement, but no one expected otherwise from the rainiest Oregon spring in years. The flowers didn't mind the rain, and the graduates and guests all brought umbrellas!

Here's a close-up of last weekend's bridal bouquet, "hot pinks" ordered by the bride's mom. For this wedding we did only the bridal bouquet and the groom's boutonniere, and it came in at a very affordable $80. You can spend a bundle if you want, but you don't have to!

I love the greenhouse-forced hydrangeas we're seeing now. However, being from the greenhouse, they're not as hardy as those from the garden centers.

I've had good luck transplanting them to my yard, but I do baby them a bit. After the first blooms fade, I transplant them into a large enough pot so their roots have room to stretch. The pot goes into a shady outdoors spot where I can give it lots of water. By this fall or next spring the new roots will be established enough to plant into a shady or semi-shady spot in the ground. Hydrangeas are thirsty plants, so be sure to give them plenty of water during their first years in the garden.