aC n WledGments

THE FLORISTS: Kim Peterson Alvarez, Liz Eiseman, Lynda Germann, Lark
Miller, Kris Okamoto, Madie McGraw Richenstein, and Mary Takayanagi have been
coworkers over the years who, in some cases unknowingly, have had a wonderful
influence on my work. Margaret Willoughby and Irene Moss (the latter a student of
the legendary Constance Spry) combined their prodigious talents to make exciting
stage arrangements for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon before handing the job
over to me. The late Beryl Shelhart was my instructor at the Western School of Floral
Design in 1986. Dottie Ferrell was looking to hire a naturalistic floral designer at just
the right time and went from boss to dear friend in a heartbeat. With Dottie you get
Opal Kickbusch (Auntie Opal)—it’s a package deal—and Opal is so generous with the
profusion of her garden. Amy Burbach is Dottie’s worthy heir. Andrea Leake, a “girl
graduate” of the floral design classes at Clackamas Community College, makes me
enviously wish I’d known what I wanted to be when I was her age. Brooke Hansen:
Who knew that the first “garden girl” I ever trained would set the bar so high for
those who would follow? Nor would I have suspected that someone young enough to
be my daughter would become one of my best friends.
Murray Rosen, farm manager of Chalk Hill Clematis, has taught me about yet
another facet of the vines I collect so passionately—thank you. I also thank Elizabeth
Howley, Loretta Mills, and the staff of the horticulture department at Clackamas
Community College, who have given me and my students an environment in which
we all can thrive.
The family: When I turned in the manuscript for Gardening with Clematis (Timber
Press, 2004), the first response from my husband, Larry, and my mother, Betty Crisp,
was, “Now you can start work on your next book!” And so I did. Growing up, I can
remember Mom often saying that if money were no object, she would have fresh
flowers in her house all the time—okay, Mom, what’s stopping you now? As for my
husband, Larry: imagine you’ve become engaged to your longtime paramour, and she
announces she is giving up her secure desk job for the vagaries of life as a florist . . .
and imagine saying, “Go for it.” Agreeing with him completely then, and constantly
urging me on now, is Lucy Hardiman. Lucy, this is all possible because of you. Thank
you all.
Thanks again to the rest of my extended family and friends in horticulture: Shirley
Beutler, mother-in-law extraordinaire, and family; Jacky Mitzel—I became a florist
too late to do your wedding flowers, but thank God you had daughters (I’m waiting);
9
10 Acknowledgments

Nancy Goldman, for your infectious good old-fashioned pep; Jan Robertson, my
next-door neighbor who always has home-grown fresh flowers in her house; Heiko
Miles of Calendula Books in Vancouver, Washington, for the gift of inspiration when
it was sorely needed; Mike and Linda Darcy—thanks, Linda, for your many stylistic
contributions, and thanks, Mike, for all the usual reasons; Dave Mays, who has always
been willing to buy the restorative cocktails, especially after tricky wedding installa-
tions; Suzanne Keolker of Mugwumps, for producing whimsy of demonic propor-
tions; Tom Fischer and everyone at Timber Press, for making this easy when it started
to get tough. And thanks especially to my copyeditor, Lorraine Anderson, for her
superb work.
Thank you to Mike Snyder, my shadow editor and trusted gardening comrade. I
don’t really know why you work behind the scenes so tirelessly for me, but I appreci-
ate it more than words can say. We’ll always have Eugene (only let’s go by ourselves
next time).
Our home and garden hosts: Lucy and Fred Hardiman; Robin and Michael Miller;
the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon; Wendy Street; Dorothy and David Rodal (oh,
the parties . . . ); Penny Vogel and her mother, Millie Kiggins; Lori and Richard at
Garden Fever; Sally Senior of Queen Bee Flowers; Mike and Linda Darcy; Nancy
Goldman; my students at Clackamas Community College (especially fall term, 2004);
Mary Skinner and the students of The Summer Farm School (summer 2005); Ernie
and Marietta O’Byrne of Northwest Garden Nursery, who lovingly tend Oregon’s
finest garden in Eugene, Oregon; Leonard Foltz and Fred Weisensee of the awe-
inspiring Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth, Oregon; and the incomparable
Glenn Sahara, for an unforgettable morning in paradise. These folks have allowed
Allan and me, together or separately, to enter their homes and businesses, deck their
halls, pick their flowers, wander their gardens, film their class assignments, and docu-
ment all results.
And to Allan Mandell, my favorite garden photographer, who is also a teacher,
philosopher, and friend. Allan now knows a great deal more about photographing
animals than he did when the project started, although the value of this information
to his future life is questionable. He’s a game one, I’ll give him that. Mahalo for “get-
ting it” and making this book magical to produce. Aloha, Papaya Boy.

LINDA BEUTLER
Acknowledgments 11

MY FIRST REAL JOB was with a flower shop. I drove the delivery van and
brought cut flowers and flower arrangements to unsuspecting community residents.
I still remember the effect of ringing the doorbell and handing the flowers to people
who no matter what frame of mind they were in would invariably abandon all grumpi-
ness or worries and instantly melt into a state of pure joy, sometimes accompanied by
tears. Witnessing this over and over again made me feel terrific to be the purveyor of
something that caused so much happiness. This was my introduction to the potency
of flowers. Whether depicted in a Sung Dynasty scroll or on a Van Gogh or Manet
canvas, or arrayed in an exquisite Japanese ikebana or a fresh farmer’s market bou-
quet, flowers artfully arranged point us on a pathway to the higher aesthetic realms
where once again, even for a moment, we feel that pure joy.
I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for the gracious hospitality of
everyone who allowed me to photograph for this project. In addition to those men-
tioned earlier, I would like to add the following: Joy Creek Nursery, Schreiner’s Iris
Gardens, McMenamins Edgefield Manor, Denver Botanical Garden, Hulda Klager
Lilac
Gardens, Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Minter Gardens, the National Arboretum,
the Thyme Garden, Cheryl Kamera, Charyl Butenko, Des Kennedy, Lee Neff, Kru-
ger’s Farm Market, Nelson’s Dahlia Farm, the Hilo Farmers Market, the Pike Place
Market, the Portland Farmers Market, and especially Lucky Farms. The photogenic
results of their dedication fill the pages of this book.
My sincere thanks to Timber Press for believing in this project and for carrying it
to fulfillment.
Finally, I would like to attest to the power of collaboration. It is phenomenal good
fortune to work with a colleague who, besides being so knowledgeable, possesses a
clear artistic vision, unswerving passion, and an irrepressible sense of humor. Thank
you, Linda.

ALLAN MANDELL
 F g intro tiff

be mindful of where you want to display flowers in your house, of the surroundings, and of your style
Floral design by Wendy street in the home of robin miller, ilo, awaii
PreFaCe

An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant
can discuss horticulture.

—Jean Cocteau

SOMETIME IN MY MID-TWENTIES I began to host the major family

functions: Easter brunch, Christmas Eve’s festivities, Thanksgiving dinner, wedding
showers. For each event my modus operandi was the same: I planned the floral deco-
rations first and the menu second. Anyone observing this might easily have guessed
that it would only be a matter of time before I shed my desk job and began a career in
floral design. At age thirty, I made that great leap of faith.
Until that time, my experience of cutting gardens had been limited to helping
myself to flowers from my mother’s and grandmother’s gardens, and to whatever grow-
ing things might present themselves in gardens adjoining various apartments where I
lived. In this way I was first introduced to such plants as alstroemeria (Peruvian lily),
Kerria japonica ‘Pleniflora’, and Siberian iris, all growing in the ignored backyard of a
vintage fourplex. I unknowingly followed the European model of including a few dol-
lars for flowers in my weekly grocery budget and was successful at making a humble
bunch of tulips, or three peony stems, enliven my flat by adding more touches of flora
that were free for the picking. Finding containers was easy. Anything that holds water,
or that can be made to hold water, is a floral container.
As a professional floral designer, I quickly learned that not all florists are gardeners,
and not all gardeners are florists. This seemed—and still sometimes seems—odd to
me. If you love flowers enough to want to spend your workday jamming them into
baskets, why wouldn’t you be curious about how they grow? Wouldn’t that knowledge

13
14 Preface

tell you something about how they might best (meaning most naturally) be presented
in an arrangement? If, as a gardener, you can create a pleasing combination of colors
Art is making some-
and textures in a flower bed, why wouldn’t you think the same combination of flowers
thing out of nothing and foliage would be equally appealing in a vase? And yet there are plenty of florists
for whom the artificial contortions of floral design are challenge enough, just as there
and selling it.
are gardeners who do not have the confidence to intuit the connection between a
freshly tilled plot of earth and an empty vase.
—Frank Zappa,
And it really is a question of confidence, of having the courage to pursue your own
The Big Book of
artistic vision; to believe that both garden design and floral design are true artistic
Frank Zappa pursuits.
Luckily, one of my earliest jobs as a florist was with Mark Vossbrink and the late
Steve Mitchell (the principal partners of Rainyday Flowers in Portland, Oregon, after
starting Rainyday Cactus in Eugene, Oregon), both of whom were hugely open-
minded about what could be used as cut plant material, and both of whom grew spe-
cialty crops in their home gardens to sell in their shops. Steve and Mark also sought
local flower growers to produce unique varieties on a larger scale than their gardens
could support. Being gardeners helped them create a florist shop that was peerless in
floral selection and singularly artistic. Sure, they sold mums (chrysanthemums) and
carns (carnations) and glads (gladioli), but they also grew and sold clarkia, allium, cro-
cosmia, salpiglosis, ornithogalum, and lupine at a time when other florists didn’t. The
variety and inventiveness of their floral selection made them Eugene’s and Portland’s
most sought-after florists in the 1980s.
Mark’s and Steve’s philosophy of design was deceptively simple. They never asked
their designers to pull the petals off flowers and rebuild them into alien shapes.
Flowers were not wired to contort their stems in directions that would be unnatural.
Flowers were not dyed alien and unsavory colors. Arrangements were not created to
conform to strict geometric shapes. Instead, they instructed their staff to present the
cut flowers as they would grow, and to improve a flower’s beauty (if such a thing can
be done) by selecting several diverse foliage types rather than adding competing flow-
ers to an arrangement. Color was agreed to be very personal, and we were encour-
aged to experiment well beyond the dictates of the standard color wheel. Drama was
added by the bombastic use of texture—contrasting shapes and surfaces were often
more important to the impression of a finished arrangement than color was. Cottage
garden flowers with sufficiently bold countenance were added to Hawaiian tropical
flowers with iconoclastic effect. The boys were mavericks, and they hired kindred
spirits.
Whether you grow your own flowers or pick up a bunch at the grocery store, it is
best not to confuse the enjoyment of flowers with investment banking. Always striv-
ing to use only those flowers and foliages that last the longest narrows your plant
palette enormously, resulting in boring bouquets. Flowers should never be boring.
Flowers and berries and leaves are living things, even when cut, and their matura-
tion and decline can also be a lovely part of the design’s life. Odd, isn’t it, that the