She emailed me that they'd be bringing a few friends for dinner tonight, and asked if I could cut a few more for their table tonight. I went a little overboard.

The red HTs are 'Big Ben' (the huge one in the center of the middle pic) and 'Red Masterpiece' (all the others). For pink roses, I put a few 'Napoleon', one 'Mme Dore' and one "Sophie's Perpetual" in there. And for white, there's a spray each of "Darlow's Enigma" and 'Mlle Blanche Lafitte'. At this time of year, and considering my roses are still "babies", that's about all I had that was "cut-worthy" for today. So, to fill it out, I snipped some Achillea ('Heidi', 'Terra Cotta' and 'Tutti Fruitti Pineapple Mango'), Monarda 'Aquarius', Phlox maculata 'Flower Power', some purple Salvia whose name I can't remember, Stokesia 'Klaus Jelitto', and Verbena bonairensis (the 'Buenos Aires' cultivar sold by Bluestone Perennials, which rather than staying about 3' tall has shot up to almost 6' tall -- perhaps I got the straight species by mistake).

Besides being fun to take "pieces of the garden" and assemble something pretty, making the bouquet also showed me how certain colors play off each other. I still have plenty of space for more plants (I waited too long before direct-sowing seeds this year, and not many have survived the squirrels' digging), so it's something to keep in mind for future perennial orders.

Oh, and tonight they brought me a bottle of wine from their last trip out to CA wine country. I knew it was coming, so perhaps that was my motivation for going a bit overboard with the bouquet.

:-)

~Christopher

In my recipe box, I keep a card filed under "F" for flower arrangements where I describe my more successful flower arrangements and the container used. This is in case I need one and am totally flummoxed.It looks like you don't need one.

Cath

Ingrid

Lynn

What do you like on the menu there? Working with the public isn't easy. Hungry people are cranky sometimes. I'm glad you have friends who treat you well. I was watching a survival reality show the other day and it made me think how easy we have it now. Why not be nice to everyone who grew, prepared and brought your meal? I'm glad they like your rare flowers.

Good food, great flowers and friends what more could you want?