Last week I was out in my garden looking for interesting things to incorporate into my shop arrangements and it occurred to me that I hadn’t really explored my various succulents or other garden greenery beyond the obvious (rosettes wired on a floral stem or long pieces of Jasmine branches) so I grabbed my shears and got to harvesting the weird and the wonderful!
Fresh Things
You may already know that I do floral arrangements and garden design, but you may not know that a lot of the flowers at the shop come from my organic garden. I still make a weekly trek to the Flower Mart, but only to buy staples and comb the buckets for strange and uncommon blooms.
Catching Up With the Muses
Things have been very busy/crazy at Apartment 46 (in a good way!) and I know I have been slack about keeping you updated. If you happened to pop in for a visit in the past several weeks, you may have been surprised to find my friend Donna at the desk.
Thank You Friends
Thank you to all who helped celebrate our 1 year anniversary May 1st. It is always so much fun to see all of our different friends coming together to share food, fun and laughter. While the past year has been a huge learning experience and we have all been through many changes, I am continually amazed by the people who come into our lives every week.
Big Things Come in Small Packages
My love affair with succulents continues. I have just discovered the beauty of Carpet Sedum which is so soft and spongy that I have a hard time keeping my dirty little hands off of it! It looks so elegant in a worn stone urn that it would be as perfect indoors as it would be out.
One of a kind treasures
One of the greatest things about Apartment 46 (and of course I am terribly biased!) is the unique nature of every item in the shop. I do carry a few vendor lines, but they have met stringent criteria and are both beautiful and natural.
I am often asked where I get all of the things I have on offer. They come from all over the place – from outdoor markets in Amsterdam to highest bidder estate sales in Hillsborough. I am constantly on the hunt for cool new items to share with my clients.
Life as Art – The Mystical, Magical Air Plant
I gravitate toward unusual plants and flowers so the stranger they are, the more I love them. That’s why I am mad about air plants (proper name, Tillandsias). A member of the Bromeliad family, they are usually found growing happily in tropical environments but can do quite well indoors with the right amount of love.
Color and Texture – Experimenting With Flowers
I am definitely not a traditional florist. In fact, I don’t consider myself a florist at all. I consider my shop a design lab. Ordering flowers from me might seem like a visit to a circus psychic (I ask a lot of questions about the receiver), but I strive to design unique and amazing arrangements that stand out from the regular fare. Twice a week I visit the San Francisco Flower Mart in the wee hours of the morning (before 7am to be exact) to see what interesting things the vendors might be selling.
Succulent Love!
I confess that I am a new convert to the joy of succulents. Growing up I was never drawn to them but my mother had a hulking mass of one in our yard that seemed to always be freezing to death and coming back to life. Other than that, it wasn’t very spectacular to me.