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Friday, July 21, 2006

In praise of flowers

I don't want to repeat myself about poppies, so I'l just say that everything I said about them last year still rings true.

I have a glass jar of jonquils beside my computer that I bought at the markets last weekend and as I type the smell just makes me swoon.

There's an iris in the bathroom in a vase I adore -- made from a Strongbow cider bottle that has been heated and stretched to make a big bud vase that only fits one flower at a time -- the iris was bought tightly furled, and all through the week it unfurled to look extremely exotic and alien in its beautiful three-pronged way.

I just love flowers, but oddly, I appreciate them most in winter.

6 comments:

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Well, I wasn't here last year so it is all new to me, and lovely. The photos are amazing.

Unfortunately I once spent a week alone in someone else's little house in inner Sydney, waiting for the phone to ring, while a huge vaseful of poppies next to the phone (three big bunches, I'd bought) slowly popped, unfurled, scattered pollen, and began to wilt.

The phone rang a number of times, but never from the right place. And it was about ten years before I could even look at a poppy again.

ThirdCat said...

I was off flowers for a while, but I love them again now, and I love sending them to people, and I love how once people know you've become 'a flower person' they send them to you too or pick them from their garden before they come to see you. And the market we go to on Saturdays has some excellent flower stalls, and the other week one of my little boys used his lolly money to buy me an iris (and then spent the rest of the day manipulating his way into his brother's bag of lollies).

Ampersand Duck said...

I'm a bit fussy about my flowers, though. I like them to look like they haven't been fussed over too much, and they need to smell nice, or be so stunning in colour/shape that the lack of smell doesn't matter. I love picking stuff fresh out of a garden.

I once told Bumblebee's dad that I liked flowers and he used to bring me scraggy cheap bunches from whatever service station he was passing. The sentiment was all wrong, you know? He wasn't thinking of what I liked (he never really bothered to find out) -- he just bought the nearest and cheapest option. I accepted them graciously, but it was around that time that I realised how wrong our budding relationship was (but hadn't realise that something else had taken seed inside of me ;) )

Boysenberry said...

Any particular poppy? I adore Iceland Poppies. Something about the pastel colours appeals to me.

I'm looking forward to my bulbs coming up. :) Blue bearded irises, jonquils, daffs, naked ladies...

JahTeh said...

My ex was useless with flowers. There's nothing like coming home from hospital to be greated with a vase of dried Proteas.

Anonymous said...

OOhh - where did you get the strongbow vase? Sounds fantastic. I have a bottle green bud vase too - perfect for jonquils.
You probably already know this, but they are dead easy to grow.