Floral Arranging Book Review: Martha’s Flowers

Book: Martha’s Flowers: A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying by Martha Stewart with Kevin Sharkey

On the cov­er of this flower arrang­ing book, Martha’s Flow­ers: A Prac­ti­cal Guide to Grow­ing, Gath­er­ing, and Enjoy­ing,  are a mix of del­i­cate opi­um pop­py hybrids and lady’s man­tle with a pop of Gun­nera leaf. It hints at what’s inside this whop­ping 288-page book on grow­ing, gath­er­ing & arrang­ing  16 dif­fer­ent types of pop­u­lar gar­den flowers.

About the Author

Martha Stew­art in one of her many gar­dens pho­tographed and pre­sent­ed in her book.

I have always admired Martha Stewart’s taste, tenac­i­ty and tal­ent and this book is a love­ly trib­ute to her amaz­ing gar­dens and her rela­tion­ship with flo­ral design­er Kevin Sharkey. He start­ed work­ing with Martha at her mag­a­zine, Martha Stew­ard Liv­ing in 1996 and they dis­cov­ered that “Walk­ing through my gar­dens years ago, it became clear to both of us that I was the grow­er, and he was the cut­ter and arranger,” writes Martha about Kevin in the introduction.

About the Floral Designs & Contents

The table of con­tents for the book Martha’s Flowers.

Most of the arrange­ments in the book were designed by Kevin and each one has details on the types of flow­ers used and a lit­tle bit about the way he arranged them in the con­tain­er. It’s a love­ly insight into how a pro­fes­sion­al design­er goes about mak­ing art from nature.

Martha Stew­art is an artist in many ways. An artist in the kitchen, the gar­den, in mak­ing friends with her many animals…the list goes on. If you like to gar­den and want to have a resource book on how to grow her favorite flow­ers, this is a great resource. For me, it’s more like eye can­dy since many of the flow­ers would not fair as well in my desert cli­mate, but I can always dream!

How to Grow Flowers

The flow­ers she fea­tures include Daf­fodils, Tulips, Lilac, Alli­um, Peony, Rose, Pop­py, Hydrangea and more! For each flower type, she reviews “How to Grow” top­ics like the zone, soil, light, choice of type of flow­ers, plant­i­ng, water­ing, fer­til­iz­ing, prun­ing, and troubleshooting.

How to Arrange Flowers

One of the many gor­geous designs made for this book. This one fea­tures peonies.

For every flower there is also a “How to Arrange” sec­tion of top­ics includ­ing cut­ting, main­tain­ing, and arrang­ing. For exam­ple, in the sec­tion about arrang­ing tulips, Martha writes, “Kevin’s go-to ves­sels for tulips are trum­pet vas­es, which encour­age the move­ment and shape of the stems, and gin­ger jars.”

This book is avail­able from all major book­sellers and on Amazon.com.

Here’s what the publisher says about this book:

The essen­tial resource from Martha Stew­art, with expert advice and lessons on gar­den­ing and mak­ing the most of your spec­tac­u­lar blooms

Martha Stew­art’s life­long love of flow­ers began at a young age, as she dug in and plant­ed along­side her father in their fam­i­ly gar­den, grow­ing healthy, beau­ti­ful blooms, every year. The indis­pens­able lessons she learned then–and those she has since picked up from mas­ter gardeners–form the best prac­tices she applies to her volu­mi­nous flower gar­dens today. For the first time, she com­piles the wis­dom of a life­time spent gar­den­ing into a prac­ti­cal yet inspired book. Learn how and when to plant, nur­ture, and at the per­fect time, cut from your gar­den. With lush blooms in hand, dis­cov­er how to build stun­ning arrange­ments. Accom­pa­nied by beau­ti­ful pho­tographs of dis­plays in Martha’s home, burst­ing with ideas, and cov­er­ing every step from seed to vase, Martha’s Flow­ers is a must-have hand­book for flower gar­den­ers and enthu­si­asts of all skill levels.

These mixed dahlias and Chi­nese paper lanterns are so love­ly in this design from the book, too!