Human Flower Project

Friday, March 25, 2005

Semana Santa

Alfombras (or floral carpets) glorify the sacred procession on Good Friday in Antigua, Guatemala

Alfombra
Photo: Semana Santa in Guatemala

With dirge music of brass bands and streets filled with the faithful and the merely amazed, Good Friday is the high-low point of Holy Week in Antigua, Guatemala.

For days in advance, various social and neighborhood groups construct alfombras—carpets made of sawdust, fruits, and flowers—both in the churches and along the streets. Some include Christian symbols—a cross, or an ox for St. Luke—others owe their designs to the woven patterns of huipiles, the garments of Guatemala’s indigenous people, still others incorporate more contemporary, popular messages.

But as human flower projects, the most spectacular are the alfombras along Antigua’s streets, meticulously designed and, ideally, completed just before the Good Friday procession begins. “Sand or sawdust is generally used to level the cobblestone roadway.  Sawdust is then collected and dyed in different colors.  Favorite colors are purple, green, blue, red, yellow and black. Flowers such as bougainvillea, chrysanthemums, carnations, roses and other native plants and pine needles are also used.”

There are several other interesting sites with explanations and images of the alfombras. But here is the most marvelous introduction I’ve found (in Spanish) to Semana Santa—Holy Week—throughout Guatemala. For the non-Spanish speaking, it’s still well worth visiting, with beautiful photography of processions all across the country, as well as the music of Good Friday marches, played by Guatemalan bands.

Good Friday Procession
Antigua, Guatemala
Photo: Semana Santa in Guatemala

As for the alfombras, no one knows whether this custom came with the Spanish from Western Iberia (where floral carpets are made for Corpus Christi processions) or if the pre-Hispanic cultures of Guatemala were already making such ephemeral artworks from local flora. (We welcome your observations or research into this subject, por cierto.)

In any case, this tradition reaches to core of flower culture, likewise the human condition. Like Tibetan mandalas, but on a magnificent citywide scale, the alfombras are made to be destroyed. Here the message goes beyond our transitory nature. The alfombras pour out the spirit of sacrifice, in the re-enactment of Christ’s walk to Calvary.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Wildflower Watchdogs

Two stories—from the United Kingdom and the state of Texas—say that wildflowers are fast disappearing.

After heavy rains in the U.S., most wildflower stories this spring are punctuated with exclamation points of glee. But those who take a longer view of things aren’t happy with what they see.

Plantlife, a conservation group in England, has found that each county in the U.K. is losing “up to 10 species of wildflowers every ten years.” Bluebells, anemones, and foxgloves are all “in retreat,” the eco-group has found, after reviewing reports from over 3000 volunteers and plant experts.

Botanists in England attribute the wildflower decline to “pollution from cars, fertilisers, and human sewage in water.” Widespread use of fertilizers particularly has enriched the soil so that “common plants” (the English don’t seem to use the word “weed") like cleavers, hawthorn and stinging nettle crowd out rarer wildflowers. At the end of its five-year study, Plantlife found that wildlife depletion was happening much faster than botanists had expected.

Stephan Myers photographed the same spot in 1988 and 2001, showing how ryegrass had overtaken a wildflower field in Texas.

Along much the same lines, longtime observers in Texas see the extent and variation of spring wildflowers declining. Stephan Myers’ excellent article for Texas Co-Op Power in March 2003 offers strong evidence that ryegrass planted by the state highway department has overshadowed the wildflowers. Ryegrass, planted as a cover crop, also produces toxins “that efficiently kill neighboring plant competitors.”

As John Thomas, owner of Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg, TX told Myers, “Spring wildflowers are one of the most important natural events we have in Texas....(a) celebratory rite of spring.” Just now, slopes along the interstate and Central Texas fields are beginning to bubble up with Indian paint brush, bluebonnets, prickly poppy, and primrose. 

According to veterinarian and naturalist Bill Eikenhorst, “Wildflowers do best in disturbed and marginal soils. But with the decline of ...farming and ranching industries, we no longer have broad areas of distressed soil needed for good wildflower populations.”

Not enough ranching, too much fertilizer, too few cattle, too many cars—the wildflowers’ demise is an unintended consequence of a million Average Joes and Joans. It’s going to take a major human flower project to conserve the bluebell and the Indian paintbrush. In seedsman Thomas’ words, “"Wildflower population declines are a man-made problem and only man (sic) can fix it.”

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Black Hyacinth—Shiny and New

After 16 years in development, Midnight Mystique hits the market.

In the English and Scottish papers, where gardening news can shove crime and even the royals off Page One, a black hyacinth appears today.

The Scotsman, inter alia, reports that “Midnight Mystique” (named apparently for a lingerie item) is for sale at 8 pounds per bulb, nearly ten times the price of familiar pink, white, and purple varieties.

Seed company Thompson & Morgan paid 150,000 pounds for “the entire stock”—three black hyacinth bulbs found in the Netherlands—and then, according to the Times of London, “spent seven years cultivating 28,000 of them.” (I don’t find the flower photogenic, but you can see one for yourself with this link.) “Midnight Mystique” was hybridized from white and blue hyacinths. The original three bulbs were produced via an expensive “tissue culture” process. “Once enough plants were established, the company could also use the traditional ‘scooping method’ where the bottom of the bulb is removed. This encourages tiny bulbs to form around the base that are then grown on, taking three years to reach maturity.”

I’ve noticed how gardeners, like hyacinths, tend to clump together along a continuum: at one extreme, the fashionistas, intent on growing new and rare varieties—at the other, the antiquers, who hanker after grandmother’s or even great-grandmother’s favorites. “Midnight Mystique,” however, may appeal to both. Here is an obviously new fangled bloom, but, we also learn, “Black flowers were beloved of the art nouveau designers at the previous turn of the century. Victorians and Edwardians at the cutting edge of fashion used to collect them, going to great lengths to track down exotic species.”

Alcea nigra
Image: Alchemy Works

One of my own old-timey favorites is alcea nigra, the black hollyhock, shiny as a grackle. We find on the Monticello garden site that “In 1629 the British herbalist John Parkinson described a variety of hollyhock with flowers ‘of a darke red like black bloud.’” The Alchemy Works site calls the black hollyhock’s essence “useful for coming to grips with the void and for introspection.”

I suppose anyone who’ll pay 150,000 pounds for three black hyacinth bulbs has a void to fill too.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Autotuin—Gardening on Wheels

Thanks to Aaron’s Home & Garden blog for this tipoff.

Florrie de Pater’s car garden, Amsterdam
Photo: Peter Kaas’ weblog

“Gardeners, start your engines!”

Only the Dutch could conceive of such an inspired horror, a mongrel of the natural and mechanical coming soon, we can only hope, to thoroughfares near us all. Autotuin is Dutch for car garden.

“A city like Amsterdam is stuffed with parked cars. Which makes it a bad place to be. The car garden offers people the possibility to refurnish one of those many public parking places in a different way. With a garden, for example. But a chicken run is possible as well....” Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

It seems in October 1999 “Fokke van Katwijk sawed off the roof of his Toyota Corolla, filled the car with one and a half cubic meters of fatty gardening soil,” and established a planter-on-wheels in the Lomanstraat. Florrie de Pater now is the proud owner, and the car garden has toodled on over to “the Willemsparkweg in Amsterdam close to Hotel Zandbergen.”

The intriguing Autotuin site gets my vote for Best of the Web. It explains everything, and we mean EVERYTHING—from parking and auto registration regulations in Amsterdam to the local cost of a junker (130-230 Euros, in 2002). Buses, we are reminded, prove “very handy as a chicken run.” We’re advised about the proper tools for removing a car roof (a “tilted grinding machine") and the oh-so-pivotal issue of weight.

Garden car, Florida
Image: Autotuin

“A car with garden soil quickly comprises a 1500 kilogram extra weight. Most cars ain’t designed for that. A standard nuclear family (two parents, two kids) on a holiday to Marbella weighs not even one third of that.”

This is garden writing! mongrel also in its mix of humor and precise specifications. You can tell the authors really have thought through and executed the making of a car garden and sincerely hope you will too, for their real purpose is a serious one: to reclaim the public space of cities for non-drivers.

Good luck, and good thing you folks are beginning this experiment in Amsterdam. It’s going to take awhile catching on in Houston and Detroit.

Uganda and Ethiopia Vie for Flower Business

Cut-flower exporters in Uganda say the Ethiopian government is luring business away.

Ugandan exporters fear that Ethiopia is offering better incentives to flower businesses, soaking up investments that might otherwise be made in Uganda.

One source told New Vision, “Ethiopia invites flower investors to visit the country. Government officials help them identify land for use, a contract is signed and two weeks later, a road is cut and electricity connected.” This investor told the Ugandan news that Ethiopia’s streamlining of permitting and infrastructural improvements, as well as tax incentives, made it an inviting place for business.

Meanwhile the director of Uganda’s Investment Authority stressed that since 1997, when Uganda exported no flowers, the sector has grown, “to more than $30m (sh51.6b) a year.” The same official said that the Ugandan government is seeking ways to improve further the business climate for flower exports.

Business incentives can be slippery strategies, especially when they involve tax-giveaways, setting off a “race to the bottom.”

Monday, March 21, 2005

Quicky Pickies in the UK

A mogul of convenience flowers will diversify, with gizmos.

Ever wonder who’s behind those blossoms for sale at your local cash & carry store? If you live in the United Kingdom, it might well be Colin Hills, founder and owner of Fresh Bouquets.

As “managing director of a small family-owned business in Kent that supplied fresh flowers to forecourts, (Hills) saw an opportunity to challenge the man-in-a-van operations that had dominated the sector. He decided to offer national delivery to the likes of Shell, BP and Texaco.”

Old gas station
near Laredo, TX
Photo: John Troesser

The Times business section profiled the king of u-tote-em flowers and his efforts to stay profitable as his main marketing outlets—“petrol stations”—go under throughout the land, “closing at a rate of about 1,000 a year. Hills estimates that Britain has lost 10% of its forecourts in the past five years.” (One former gas station I know of, an old timey one in Bastrop, Texas, coincidentally became a full-fledged flower shop. By the by, here’s a site with a bunch old Texas gas stations)

The big oil companies are building super stations; if they’re anything like the ones we have here in the U.S., the case with the rolling cylinders of hot dogs has been replaced with a full-scale restaurant, gift shop, and hot showers. In response, Hills has shifted his flower selling to convenience stores.

Flowers of his Flowerfete brand “tend to be brightly coloured and limited in range, since most of them are bought by men making a ‘grab and go’ purchase for wives, mothers or girlfriends. These men on the move don’t want to be dazed with choice. And they don’t want to pay too much. The average retail price is £4.99.”

The Sunday Times article describes the tight margins in the flower business (Hills’ nursery, which supplies 1/6th of his flowers, only breaks even) and Hills’ non-stop effort to keep Fresh Bouquets blooming financially.

A sorry note—Hills “has been piloting a range of gadgets, such as sunglasses, torches, remote-controlled cars, radio pens, umbrellas and corkscrews, all retailing at about £3 and all of which can be offered as an ‘impulse’ purchase at the counter.” Will Sweetheart soon be coming home not with a half dozen pink roses but a “remote controlled car”?

(The Sunday Times links don’t seem to permit backtracking, rather like having the door locked behind you. With that proviso, here’s the Colin Hills story.

A Bouquet Primer

Oak leaves for gravity, mint for spice.

Do you like following directions? Let’s put that another way, does having “directions” give you a nudge of confidence?

Country Bouquet with Wildflowers
Photo: Better Homes & Gardens

Then by all means check out this guide to bouquet basics and go ahead—arrange some flowers this week. Easier than diagramming a sentence, more effective than arm-twisting, flower arranging at minimum gets your eyes off your navel and results in a living gift.

Of course, you don’t need guidance but if, as Martha Stewart figured out, you crave it, there are how-to’s all over the web. This one, from Better Homes & Gardens, I especially like for its range of projects and esoteric details. For example, why should one cauterize poppy stems?

There’s lots more. How to “flay” lilac stems with a little hammer. An introduction to “swags.” And instructions for making a “White Pumpkin Vase with Red Flowers”—for Clara Barton’s coming out party perhaps?

The pop-up ads on this site are annoying but the information’s good. Read as much as you like, ditch most of it, then get your hands on some fresh flowers.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Norooz - The Persian New Year

Spring in the Northern Hemisphere arrives today at 4:03 pm Tehran time.

Haft Seen, with hyacinths
Image: Best Iran Travel

The vernal equinox, when days and nights are of equal length, marks the New Year or - Norooz—in Iran. This ancient occasion (it’s year 2564 by the Persian calendar) is recognized with a host of ceremonies and customs, all celebrating the freshness of “New Time” (No Ruz). Leaves poke out of bare branches. Maybe purity isn’t so puritanical, and “rebirth happens.”

“A few weeks before the New Year, Iranians clean and rearrange their homes.  They make new clothes, bake pastries and germinate seeds as sign of renewal.” Of course, greenery and flowers appear during the NoRuz, especially the hyacinth or “sonbol.” This powerfully fragrant spring flower, native to Iran, appears on the Haft Seen set at this time.

“A special cover is spread on to the Persian carpet or on a table in every Persian household. This ceremonial table is called “cloth of seven dishes,” (Haft Seen) each one beginning with the Persian letter “cinn” (-- or s). The number seven has been sacred in Iran since the ancient times, and the seven dishes stand for the seven angelic heralds of life-- rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.”

Haft Seen, North Carolina, USA, 2001
Photo: Farsinet

As with American Christmas trees, every Haft Seen is different, but most will include the following objects:

1. sekeh - a gold, or shiny, coin symbolizing an adequate income
2. samanu - a sweet wheat pudding, symbolizing the sweetness of life
3. sabzi - green vegetable or herb shoots symbolizing fertility
4. sonbol - hyacinth flower
5. seer - garlic
6. senjed - a small dried fruit
7. serkeh - vinegar to ward off bitterness
If any of the items are not available, two other “s” items may be substituted: sib - apple, or sumagh - sumac.”

This site offers a closer look at the ritual items on the Haft Seen, their meanings and sacred origins.

Haft Seen table
Austin, Texas, USA, 2003

Here in Austin, I was able two years ago to attend a Norooz celebration of local Zoroastrian families. Centuries ago, the Zoroastrians lived in Persia but after the advance of Islam, those who didn’t convert migrated to the Western coast of India. Quite a number of Zoroastrians have moved to the US in recent years.

There were about 15 families at this spring gathering, which included a fire, flower and prayer ceremony conducted by a Zoroastrian priest, and a delicious pitch-in meal. The Haft Seen table here was enlivened by both hyacinths and daffodils, a mirror, “sabze (a dish of sprouted grass), and a bowl of flashing goldfish.

(Astrologically, the first day of springs marks the end of Pisces, known in Persian tradition as the end of “the HOOT --large fish—period....This is the reason for placing an image of changing of the year on the New Year’s table.” )

Norooz festivities go on for nearly two weeks of feasting, visiting, and gift-giving. On the 13th day, known as Seezdah Bedar, Persian families bring the holiday to a close with a big meal out of doors. Also on this day, people throw out the dish of sprouted grass that has graced the Haft Seen. (Let’s hope those hyacinth bulbs are planted in the garden, to rebloom for Norooz 2565.)

Norooz Mobarak!!

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Flower Myth

An insightful exhibition traces floral art from Edouard Manet to Jeff Koons.

Still Life with Japanese Print
Paul Gauguin
(Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art)

The Fondation Beyeler outside Basel, Switzerland, presents “Blumenmythos”—“Flower Myth”: 150 art works from Impressionist paintings to contemporary installations.

Like our own Project, this show explores the changing meanings, values, and perspectives embodied by flowers, as people transport blossoms from nature into culture. This exhibition, which opened at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, emphasizes several shifts in floral art—from late 19th century naturalism to abstraction in Picasso and Giacometti, to Warhol’s decorative flower series of the 1960s and the more socially engaged works of contemporary artists, like Maria Cardoso’s funereal “Vertical Garden.”

“Any painter reveals his true self by painting flowers,” says co-curator Ulf Kuster. And in doing so, artists tend simultaneously to reveal the tenor of their times. Is nature to be mimicked or mastered? Do we notice the vivacity of flowers, or their mortality?

The Fondation Beyeler has a gorgeous web exhibition of 14 pieces from “Flower Myth” (it’s worth downloading Flash Plug-in to view these works by Van Gogh, O’Keefe, Ernst, Goldsworthy...); the swiss info site even has a short video of the exhibit, excellent since one of the pieces IS a video. Those of us who won’t make it to Basel before the show closes, May 22, can especially appreciate these digital tours. There’s also a catalogue (about $80, including shipping to the US).

Thanks to the curators of the Louisiana Museum of Art and Fondation Beyeler for mounting this imaginative, sumptuous show. Flowers are more than soap scent and restaurant decor!

Friday, March 18, 2005

Sunset for Colorado Rose Farms

First the state’s carnation farms collapsed; now Colorado roses are fading too.

Sunset, Estes Park, CO
Photo: http://www.gull.us

In the global competition for cut-flower dollars, U.S. farms have been struggling for twenty years. Now, in Colorado, once an international center for carnation and rose production, flower farms are vanishing.

“The Colorado carnation was the first trademarked flower in the United States. Wheat Ridge, home to many greenhouses and the epicenter of the trade, called itself ‘Carnation City USA’ and sent a bunch of local carnations to the White House every week.

“At its high point, Colorado counted more than 100 carnation growers in annual agriculture surveys. Their record production came in 1974, when greenhouses sold 193 million blooms. Today, the state produces roughly 1.5 million carnations.”

South American carnation farms drove the Colorado growers—those that didn’t fold altogether— into production of roses, which sell for more per stem. “By 1991, Colorado cut-flower growers produced twice as many roses as carnations, setting a record high that year of 40 million roses.

“That was also the year Congress passed the Andean Trade Preference Act, which removed tariffs from Andean agricultural imports to encourage that region’s farmers to switch from growing coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, to more benign crops.

“The duty-free shipping lured dozens of South American growers to sell roses, and their sales soared. In 2003, Colorado rose growers sold 1.2 million blooms, but that production fell further last year as a couple remaining growers switched crops.”

The year-round sun and cheaper labor in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, have all but vanquished the rose farms too. Berthoud Rose Farm, profiled in this article, is one of the last remaining cut-flower farms in the state. Its “crop of 800,000 roses annually is now almost the entire state’s production.”

Colorado roses abound in June and July; during those months, growers can drop prices steeply enough to compete with Latin American farms.

Wishing well to fair and humane flower farmers world-wide, we ask buyers, “Do you know where your roses come from?”