How could I resist warm-toned speckled and velvety fruit with full and flopsy garden roses? They look wonderful arranged in any fashion. All of the soft tones and dried leaves of the season melt together so well.
All photos and styling by Silvanie Farmar Bowers
Growing up on a cut flower farm, with fields of garden roses, I took them for granted. It has been nearly a decade since my family said goodbye to our beautiful old farm. And now, I'm realizing I miss them. May is the explosion of roses, the first flush. I picked a single bucket of roses from my mother's garden and it felt spectacular. The fragrance, every petal and fading bloom makes my mind buzz like a bee to the next one, and the next one.
If you're picking garden roses, make sure you have a bucket of deep water nearby and place them in that bucket as soon as you can. Good hydration is key to lasting flowers. The water should always be room temperature whether in a bucket or vase.
When dealing with roses, make sure you have sharp shears so you can get a clean cut. When ready to arrange, cut above a node and always cut at an angle so the stem can drink the most water. Make sure you have plenty of water in your vessel and check it daily, filling as you need. After twenty years of doing flowers, the single most overlooked thing restaurants and other accounts do is forgetting to water in the first couple of days. Then, when the flowers begin to wilt, they add more water. More times than not, this is too late and they won't come back. If you notice a bloom or two wilting a bit, take it out and recut the stem.
Part of the beauty of garden roses is the color fading and petals dropping. I mean, big swaths of fluffy petals. This has been shown in paintings for centuries. Flowers are beautiful in all states of life, after all, isn't that why we pick them?
You can feel spring in the morning now, with light pouring through the windows and the warmth outside. Suddenly, you don't need your sweater. My sister, Zoe and I got together to make a sweet post about May Day, but then were more inspired by an abandoned birds nest and roses. Roses growing on her fences and field. She and I grew up on our family's cut flower farm with 13,000 roses planted in our fields and worked together designing florals for years. We have always done flowers.
In Asia, roses in fossils have dated back 70 million years. Even if they don't know any other flowers, most people can identify a rose. Throughout history, symbolism of roses has meant so many things, from love to death, peace to war. Wreaths of roses have been found in Egyptian tombs, and Romans used them to carpet their floors for special occasions.
Roses and strawberries are such a sweet combination, with this single-petaled climber mimicking a strawberry flower. It is also a beautiful scent combination and can be used to create delicious jams. They go together so easily.
I spent the summer I turned twenty in France and one of my favorite desserts was a bowl full of sliced strawberries with red wine and sugar to macerate them. Just soak them in the wine. No need for cream or anything else. Delicious.
Rose water is so refreshing, a quick face or body mist with a hydrosol really helps cool you down and to elevate your senses. It's also nice to spritz it over a glass of chilled white wine or champagne.
See another easy bouquet Zoe and I did with strawberries. Or, some of her garden roses. Daisies and strawberry foliage is also another nice combination.
Florals and styling by Zoe Honscher & Silvanie Farmar Bowers, photos by Silvanie Farmar Bowers
My sister's amazing garden roses from a few summers ago...
