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!