Human Flower Project
London, ENGLAND
Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND
Austin, Texas USA
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Should Cadillacs Be Forgot?
General Motors, after another near death experience, might be revived by making the vehicles of its glory days—like the flower car.
1958 Cadillac flower car
Photo: Washington Times
The cortege for Year 2008 is lined up, idling, ready to roll into history. And in that procession, we hope to spot a flower car, loaded with funereal blooms—gladiolas and white carnations.
Never heard of a “flower car”? Until very recently, neither had we – yet more evidence of how that Goliath known as General Motors has been knocked in the head.
These were some of the priciest of GM’s “professional cars” – made to carry the casket in a discreet compartment, and above that, an open deck (think El Camino) for transporting to the cemetery all those heaps of sympathy flowers people used to send.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Gardening Weenie: Surrender to Win
After nine years of meager success, little fun, and too much hideousness in the yard, we cry UNCLE, Uncle Stan.
Unconditional Surrender
to Texas weather, personal failing, Stan the expert
Photo: Bill Bishop
Shear your own sheep and card your own wool and spin your own yarn and knit your own hairshirt. Let’s hear it for DIY! Self-reliance gets a good rap, and deserves it, from anyone who as much as skimmed the Whole Earth Catalogue – also, from Emersonians, bomb-shelterites, the Amish, small children, Millennialists, and cheese-making monks. As for gardening, do-it-yourself goes without saying. Otherwise it doesn’t amount to gardening at all – you’re just possessing property and grinning stupidly at undeserved compliments.
We are all for self-reliance, except when the self is unreliable. As in Will not countenance the thought of the desert plants even though said-self inhabits what is for all practical purposes a desert environment…
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Here Come Santa Claus Flowers
With poinsettia sales down, we still bring tidings of ho-ho-horticulture.
Santa Claus rides again into the flower stand at San Francisco’s Union Square
Photo: Ranjay Mitra
The North Pole is not noted for its floriculture, but could anything measley as arctic ice thwart Santa Claus?
He appeared for the 45th year in a row in San Francisco’s Union Square with mounds of chrysanthemums, daisies, gladiolas, and stems of eucalyptus. The old elf arrived on an energy-efficient bicycle, having laid off the reindeer in a down economy.
Cut-Flower Trade • Florists • Gardening & Landscape • Secular Customs • Permalink
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Eating Off Flora Danica
Royal botanical porcelain would make a nice gift—for somebody else. (Just don’t put it through the dishwasher.)
Scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis Arvensis) teacup
Flora Danica porcelain
Photo: Flora Danica Online
The best gifts are free or longed for – that’s our view, anyway – so please to take us off your to-do list this season.
In the “longed for” category, along with the Arabian horse we craved from ages 8 to 11, we now include eight place settings of Flora Danica porcelain. Better to want than to have.
The first Flora Danica china was to be a gift from Christian VII, King of Denmark, to Empress Catherine of Russia (“the Great” describing, among other attributes, her appetite for porcelain). If only Catherine had known this gift was in the works, she might have hung on a few more years, but in fact she died before the set had been completed.