{"id":131,"date":"2009-01-13T07:47:26","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T15:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=131"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:00","slug":"spry-arrangements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/spry-arrangements\/","title":{"rendered":"Spry Arrangements"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPRY ARRANGEMENTS
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Between the current recession and the high cost of cut flowers, many florists are relying on alternative plant materials to make up arrangements.\u00a0 Curly willow shows up in all the best places, along with ornamental cabbage, dried seed pods and interesting branches plucked from dormant shrubs and trees.\u00a0 Fruit–especially green apples, oranges and lemons–has escaped from the crisper drawer, only to reappear on the hall table in the company of some unlikely associates.\u00a0 Pomegranates had their moment in the sun at the turn of the millennium and have kept right on going.\u00a0 A few years ago, Martha Stewart coated some plump pomegranates with sparkly mica dust and pinned them to a holiday wreathe.\u00a0 High-end florists mount them on dowels and insert them into seasonal arrangements; decorators strew them at random over granite countertops.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All of this–the pomegranates, the lemons and even the dormant branches–would have amused Constance Spry (1886-1960).\u00a0 Spry, who was the spiritual godmother of Martha Stewart and all the other gracious living gurus, broke the rules of traditional flower arranging by using unconventional plant materials in unexpected ways.\u00a0 Her friend, English journalist Beverley Nichols, wrote of her, “When Constance first went out into the country lanes and gathered her faded leaves and her curious berries and her spectral branches, and when she proceeded to create from these unfamiliar ingredients designs of baroque beauty, she was writing a fragrant page of history.”\u009d\u00a0 Sadly, that page of history has long been turned, and Constance Spry is best known these days as the namesake of the first of David Austin’s English roses.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Constance Spry’s London was in the same situation as much of the rest of the world in 1929.\u00a0 The “Roaring Twenties”\u009d had given way to the stock market crash, and it was not the best time to open a new business, let along one that sold a luxury commodity like cut flowers.\u00a0 But Miss Spry opened for business, and, apparently sold lots of flowers to all the best people–or at least those of the best people who still had money.\u00a0 By the early 1930’s she was successful enough to open a school of flower arranging in the exclusive Mayfair district of London.\u00a0 Like any good modern celebrity, she wrote a successful book on the subject.\u00a0 Her fame grew steadily.\u00a0 In 1937 she took a stall at the Chelsea Flower Show, further enhancing her reputation.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually, everyone who was anyone, from the Royal Family to lesser viscountesses to the mere noveaux riches, had their flowers “done”\u009d by Constance Spry.\u00a0 Ordinary people read her many books and emulated Spry’s techniques.\u00a0 Spry expanded her repertoire beyond flowers, advising and instructing the public on food, wine and gracious living.\u00a0 Not only did she create the flower arrangements for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, she concocted a special curried chicken salad for the coronation luncheon.\u00a0 By the time she died in 1960, Constance Spry was a bit like the monarchy itself–a British institution. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What made Constance Spry’s flower arrangements wonderful?\u00a0 First, they were both large and light.\u00a0 Spry believed that space itself was an important component of any arrangement, and she always allowed space between the flowers, branches and foliage.\u00a0 Tightly clustered, static compositions were for people with static imaginations, not Constance Spry.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Her choice of plant materials was singular.\u00a0 Then as now, some people had pronounced ideas about which flowers were suitable for gracious arrangements, and which were “common”\u009d and somehow not fit for any container other than a jelly jar on the kitchen counter.\u00a0 Spry expanded the flower arranger’s concept of “acceptable”\u009d plant material to encompass all kinds of things.\u00a0 Though her compositions were as contrived as those of any other florist, they included all kinds of found components.\u00a0 She combined the dead with the living, flowers with fruits and berries and the familiar with the exotic.\u00a0 Her arrangements were sometimes over the top, but they were never boring.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And that is what it is all about.\u00a0 If you are going to go to the expense of decorating your surroundings with something as ephemeral as plant material, then there is no reason not to do it in a way that you find interesting.\u00a0 A high end florist knows all kinds of tricks and has access to all manner of stems and blossoms, but you have access to something even more unique–your own sensibilities.\u00a0 So grab some of those seedpods that you forgot to cut off last summer’s lilies, or go to the store and harvest a big bag of pomegranates.\u00a0 Make your own kind of “flower”\u009d arrangement.\u00a0 If people compliment your creation, take all the credit.\u00a0 If people snicker when they see it, think of Constance Spry and carry on.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SPRY ARRANGEMENTS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Between the current recession and the high cost of cut flowers, many florists are relying on alternative plant materials to make up arrangements.\u00a0 Curly willow shows up in all the best places, along with ornamental cabbage, dried seed pods and interesting branches plucked from dormant shrubs and trees.\u00a0 Fruit–especially green apples, oranges … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}