art of flowers...a blog by The Bonny Doon Garden Company

Tessa's Garden Workshop- POSIES!

On May 10th- the day before Mother's Day - I conducted our inaugural workshop in the Bonny Doon Garden.  The weather was gorgeuous, the roses beginning their show, and the posies we made were absolutely perfect!  I met several new acquaintances, and I have to say, I was in my element!  I LOVED sharing my passion for flowers, combined with beautiful, historical sweet little posie-know-how with my new friends!  Here's some photos I would like to share --images taken by my brother in law, who has found a new passion in photography!  He's definitely doing a fabulous job--don't you think?

A mother & daughter together making posies...what a great mother's day idea!

Lessons in beauty--although I found myself thinking here- Marilyn, are you sure you haven't done this before?'

Me and Deborah Schatan (Sky Meadow Apothecary).  She gave her posie to her mother-in-law, and it was WELL received of course!

A perfect posie! Wow, and I mean perfect-o!

In Eastern lands, they talk in flowers, and they tell in a garland their loves and cares; each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, on its leaves a mystic language bears

-james g. pervical

I am so thankful to all of my first workshop students.  I am impressed with your vigor, interest, and graciousness.  You all took something beautiful, and made it into a splendid masterpiece, never to be forgotten in the heart of the recipient.

Bouquets to Art-Set up

Today I set up my exhibit at the deYoung Museum San Francisco for the Annual Bouquets to Art.  Wow! All I can say is this was a blast- for some reason I was not stressed AT ALL.  It went very smooth- thanks to my sweetie for hauling things up to the 3rd floor for me! In the end- I felt good about my piece.  Smartest thing I did was to not pay attention to what the other designers were working on, but just focus on mine.  After I finished I walked around and checked it out and oh my goodness gracious alive! I began to have convulsions.  I have NEVER seen such incredible works of floral art in my life.  It was absolutely breath-taking!  I cannot wait to get back up there Wednesday to re-fresh my piece.  I'm going to take a long walk through all the exhibits and really devour every piece! I feel so fortunate to be a part of this! These designers are truly blessed at what they do. 

I did the best I could with what was given to me (in other words I had to really work on being inspired!)  I do love oak trees, but this was a little challenging!

Well here's some shots of me setting up my piece...enjoy!

This is why I don't eat Lamb

Two new little beings were born on the 'farm' today.  Kristin's Ewe, 'Fidget' has given birth to 'Poppy' and 'Oregano'.  Poppy, the little girl was born a little on the weak side so we had to force her to nurse the first night.  She's SO tiny and precious, they both are.  And what a welcome addition!  We're all so giddy and excited!  They're a week old now, but still so little and cute as a button.  How can people actually eat lamb? My husband was pretty much raised on it- he grew up in Istanbul, and when they actually had money to buy meat--lamb was the hot ticket.  OK well- the bad news it that these are 'market' sheep which means little Mr. Oregano may have to go some day...to market.  But while he's here and not a big smelly mean ram yet, we'll certainly make his life wonderful.  They're not my sheep so let's blame Kristin!! :)

This is little Poppy--i'm thinking our little sheeps milk feta maker!!!! YUM!

And this is little Oregano!  He's a cutie too, and he's was a pretty good size boy already!

Bouquets to Art!

Wow! It has really been a while since you've heard from me.  I've been super busy, sick with several colds, sinus stuff, tummy, etc. 

But I'm still here!  The holidays went well--I'm happy to say we finished off the year with a bang!  I went on break up so the snow in Tahoe to ski/snowboard with my family between Christmas and New Year.  It was a very short trip, but we really enjoyed it.

Just before Christmas though I had an interesting and surprising visitor!  Can you believe Mr. Anthony Ward wanted to meet with me to try and coordinate a collaboration while he was in town working on his book Being with Flowers.  How exciting is that? What? You don't know who he is? Well just check out his link above, and you'll find out.  I read about him several years ago on how he was knocking the socks off Santa Cruz with his unique and highly sylize- it reminds me of 'bohemian' floral design.  It's really cool stuff. So we met and met again, and tried to collaborate but just couldn't make it happen while the short time he was in town, I was knee-deep in stuff, and he ended up leaving up to Seattle early, then off to India.  I'm thankful to have made his acquantance, and I really feel fortunate he contacted me and gave me his 'thumbs' up so to speak.  He thinks I need to hand my hat on a higher rack--in other words, where are those really cool-big blow out events? Need a floral designer?  Well here goes- with the help of Anthony making a call to a 'contact' at San Francisco's Fine Arts Museums- I'm not sure what he said about me, but it had to be good.  I sent in my portfolio and resume for exhibitor approval at the Bouquets to Art 2008

And guess what I got approved! I went up today for the selection process. Boy that was hard.  I felt inspired by numerous pieces.  What an incredible museum- I love it! All that wonderful art surrounding me it gets me all giddey- all that beauty, history, mystery, and MONEY! Wow!  Who know's what piece I'll get- I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, but hey, I'll be there! I am not in the exhibitors list because of my late entry, but that's quite alright.  More to follow on this...

Amber's Wedding

I cannot believe it, but my 'little' neice is getting married this Saturday!  Yikes!  Even though she's in WV, I was the 'preferred' floral designer for her wedding! Surprise! So here's her beautiful bouquet.  It was really hard not to just put every gorgeous,  fragrant, lucious bloom into her bouquet. So here is the refined version of what I sent her.  She's got a piece of my garden to walk with her down the isle!  Congrats Amer, and I love you!

A Day in the Garden with Amy Stewart

I am so thrilled about this very special event!  We will be hosting a book-signing and talk with Amy Stewart!

This event will be a floral extravaganza and something you won't want to miss!  see our web site event calendar for more details. 

Since we opened our new Squid Row Studio, we have been wanting to really be able to host events so that we can really connect and spend time with our customers, & friends.  This event with Amy will enable us to do just that, and hopefully meet some of you face-to-face!  We will enjoy Amy's talk -of course, but also we can hear other special guest speakers too..Otto Lund of the Monterey Bay Rose Society, and also Don Garibaldi, who will be there talking about the history of his company, Ano Nuevo Flower Growers, and the history of the super-sweet violets that he grows!

And as if that's not enough- we'll also enjoy live music, food, and a floral design demo conducted by myself!!

We truly hope to see you there!

It's all for the love....

Well, we are currently knee..I mean neck-high in Valentine preparations.  We've been planning the menu, and ordering flowers, and just really focusing on what we're doing this year that we can do better for our customers.  We are offering a new product this year I'm totally excited about!  We're now carrying Veriflora Certifed roses from Ecuador!  We got our first shipment a couple weeks ago, and wow! are they goreous!  I love them, and we sold out quickly, and I really miss them! Of course we'll use them in our beautiful and unique dozen rose arrangements.  I'm excited too because we're getting Valentine  posies orders pretty regularly now!  Yeah!  We'll be in a posie-making frenzy within a few days!

We've enjoyed some incredible press due to the publication of Amy Stewart's new book, Flower Confidential.  Two weeks ago, we filmed a segment that will be featured on CBS Sunday Morning!  It will air on February 11th, Sunday morning, and will include us, chatting with Martha Teichner(wow!), as well as Amy Stewart,and numerous other flower industry guests from across the nation, as we explore the flower business on the brink of it's biggest holiday of the year...Valentine's Day!  And of I just LOVED being able to chat about why Amy chose to write about BDGC in her book, and espcially when Martha's first question to me was, "Teresa, what is a Posie?"  OH my, that was the BEST! This was a delightful event in my life, and I really enjoyed it so much.  I'll never forget it.  I hope you enjoy the pictures, and I'll be back to write more after Feb. 14th !!  

a Thanksgiving to remember!

Well, the shop was bursting at the seams this season with centerpieces and bouquets styled with the season's best!  Lots of fall colored roses, and pumpklins, berries, vines & leaves.  It was gorgeous!  We had two very busy days...the day before Thanksgiving was tremendously busy, and we had a lot of fun putting together arrangements and helping customers.  My whole family came down and helped out. All the flower girls were on duty that day at one point or another too, and I ended up closing up shop with Alania about 8:30 that night.  Thanksgiving day started out slow, but then BAM! It all happened at the last minute (as usual!) And now...it's all about pine boughs and cedar garland! Christmas here we come!

Sky Meadow Anniversary

Here's an arrangement I did for a special event celebrating the two year anniversary of Sky Meadow Apothecary.  It seemed to be a very elegant and beautiful celebration of the apothecary and it's friends.  I love doing events like this because  I know people will really appreciate the beautiful flowers, and acknowledge the artistry of the arrangement.  Good floral artistry provokes conversation amongst strangers, and realeases tension and awkwardness amongst the guests.