Summer Wildflowers Abound

Flowers for Sale from the Local Farmers’ Market in the Suburbs of Washington, D.C.

By Kit Wertz

My sis­ter and flo­ral busi­ness part­ner, Casey, and I are on a won­der­ful vaca­tion togeth­er as August starts. After a pri­vate event on the East Coast where we pro­vid­ed flow­ers, we are spend­ing time with our extend­ed fam­i­ly includ­ing our par­ents, chil­dren and in-laws who live in Vir­ginia and Mary­land close to our Nation’s Capital.

Nor­mal­ly, we are report­ing from our base in the South Bay of Los Ange­les where the sun is hot and the air is dry, but the flow­ers are love­ly. This mon­th’s news has an East Coast accent and vibe. Out­side Wash­ing­ton, D.C., the sun is still hot (about 90 degrees Fahren­heit), it’s not that dry (it’s quite humid) and the flow­ers are still love­ly. Last Fri­day, my mom and I took my twins to her local farm­ers’ mar­ket where there were plen­ty of veg­etable ven­dors and three plant and flower vendors.

I pur­chased a love­ly broad leaf basil plant to make bruschet­ta for guests we are hav­ing for din­ner on Sun­day (one cou­ple is my stand-in god­par­ents who have known me my entire life). My mom pur­chased toma­toes, corn, peach­es, black­ber­ries and the kids ate a few hand­made pop­si­cles in yum­my sum­mer fruit flavors.

One of the plant grow­ers was Coun­try Gar­dens and she was sell­ing Vir­ginia-grown flower bou­quets for $10. There were about 10 stems in the bou­quet I pur­chased. It fea­tured two stems of PeeGee Hydrangea, a stem of Glad­i­o­lus, some Zebra Grass, Salvia, Zin­nia, Queen Anne’s Lace, a stem of Mag­no­lia leaves, a few oth­er types of green­ery, pink Ner­ine lilies, Rud­bekia and Tan­sy. I added some grass­es from our par­ents’ gar­den as well as hos­ta leaves and a bloom­ing branch of pink crêpe myr­tle. Lovely.

Dur­ing part of this week, Casey’s been enjoy­ing the beach­es of the Atlantic and shot a few flow­ery shots in the city of Bethany Beach.

She also learned about the tri­als peo­ple went through about 100 years ago to arrive at the beach. Peo­ple had to take boats, carts and at one point a sled through deep sand to arrive ocean side. A beau­ti­ful gar­den in Bethany cel­e­brates the ter­mi­nal of the Bethany Beach Loop Canal. As stat­ed in the Delaware Pub­lic Archives of the Bethany Beach Loop Canal.

“For a time, the final por­tion of the trip was com­plet­ed in a two-horse-drawn bus through the deep sand to the town. In an effort to improve trav­el con­di­tions, a shal­low water­way was dredged from the Assawoman Canal to this location.”

The open­ing of the 1.5‑mile shal­low water­way over 100 years ago is now marked by a gor­geous garden.

Wanted: Florist for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

White House Seeks New Chief Floral Designer

By Kit Wertz

The most famous res­i­dence in the land has been with­out a chief flo­ral design­er since March of this year when it was not­ed that Lau­ra Dowl­ing, White House Florist since 2009, had quit. Cur­rent­ly, accord­ing to “The Reli­able Source” col­umn of The Wash­ing­ton Post, The White House is seek­ing new appli­cants for this lofty posi­tion and has nar­rowed the field to 25 expe­ri­enced flo­ral designers.

Before Dowl­ing, Nan­cy Clarke held the florist-in-chief posi­tion for over 30 years. Before Clarke, Dot­tie Tem­ple served as the White House flo­ral design­er in chief for 13 years and wrote a book about the expe­ri­ence which tells read­ers that Pres­i­dent, Lyn­don John­son once per­son­al­ly yanked a cen­ter­piece off a table dur­ing a state din­ner because he was annoyed by the smell of lilies of the valley.

Tem­ple’s book, called Flow­ers, White House Style, was pub­lished in 2002 and fea­tures flow­ers from the Nixon through Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tions and gives read­ers an inside look to White House flo­ral designs and deci­sions through­out history.

Accord­ing to many design­ers who’ve worked in the base­ment flower shop of The White House, it’s a tough job.  From The Wash­ing­ton Post, “You have to be ready to be hurt,” said one for­mer employ­ee of the White House flo­ral shop. “You get your feel­ings crushed. It’s hap­pened to all of us. You think you’ve done this fab­u­lous arrange­ment and some­one says, ‘that is just hor­ri­ble’ and you have to take it grace­ful­ly because it’s not about you, it’s about what­ev­er that first lady wants.”

Hours after it was known to the pub­lic that Dowl­ing had left the White House posi­tion, she issued a state­ment via the law firm Sid­ley Austin, “After almost 6 years as Chief Flo­ral Design­er at the White House, I have resigned in order to pur­sue excit­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties and explore my pas­sion for flo­ral artistry and design. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be launch­ing a new plat­form for my work as an author, speak­er, instruc­tor and design con­sul­tant that builds on the cre­ative ideas and part­ner­ships I’ve formed dur­ing my tenure there. It’s been such an hon­or to work at the White House and I will always be grate­ful for this incred­i­ble opportunity.”

Accord­ing to The Wash­ing­ton Post, sources close to the White House nev­er have revealed the true rea­son for Dowl­ing’s leav­ing. Many in the Amer­i­can flo­ral indus­try are hop­ing for a the next White House Chief Florist to be one who embraces the Field to Vase move­ment of local­ly sourced flow­ers (see SlowFlowers.com).

This local­ly grown phi­los­o­phy echoes Michelle Oba­ma’s Let’s Move ini­tia­tive that fea­tures local­ly sourced pro­duce for its “Eat Healthy” por­tion of the plan and a florist who embraces Amer­i­can Grown flow­ers would be well-suit­ed for our cur­rent pres­i­den­t’s admin­is­tra­tion and all that fol­low as res­i­dents of the most famous home in the country.

Field to Vase Dinners: Brooklyn & Washington, D.C. Dinner Dates

On August 20th, the next field-to-vase din­ner is going to be in Brook­lyn, NY at the Brook­lyn Grange Rooftop farm. Guests will be din­ing on local fare and sur­round­ed by Amer­i­can Grown blooms in such a beau­ti­ful city. Join the fun!

BROOKLYN: Join the one-of-a-kind flower-cen­tric din­ing event on Thurs­day, August 20th at The Brook­lyn Grange Rooftop Farm. Local farmer-florist Mol­ly Cul­ver of Mol­ly Oliv­er Flow­ers will design the tablescape and guests will be served an unfor­get­table farm-to-table meal.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Just out­side our favorite home­town city, a fall sea­son­al gath­er­ing of field to vase din­ers will enjoy a fab­u­lous farm-to-table meal  at Lyn­nVale Stu­dios in Gainesville, Vir­ginia, set for Sep­tem­ber 3rd. Local farmer-florist Andrea Gagnon is the host and she will design the tru­ly local flo­ral tablescape to delight the senses.

Flower Duet’s Work Featured on Wedding sites and Blogs in July

We were pleased to be fea­tured on a num­ber of wed­ding sites and blogs in late June and through­out July. If you missed our post­ings on Face­book, here is a snap­shot of our recent­ly pub­lished work and press coverage!

InsideWeddings.com

Flower Duet was fea­tured a Marsala “Col­or of the Year” wed­ding bou­quet of ours shot by pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jean­nie Mutrais on June 29, 2015.

HGTVGardens.com

Flower Duet’s per­go­la and arch work was fea­tured many times in an arti­cle on Flower Draped Per­go­las on HGTVGardens.com.

Aisle Perfect

AislePerfect.com fea­tured a sun­set wed­ding we did at Los Verdes Golf Club with our own Bam­boo Pergola!

Focus Photo Inc.

Flower Duet cre­at­ed wed­ding flow­ers for a wed­ding at The Hold­ing Com­pa­ny. Pho­tos by Focus Pho­to Inc.

B and G Photography

B & G Pho­tog­ra­phy cap­tured some won­der­ful pho­tos from a wed­ding we did in Palos Verdes.

July Wedding Flower Designs by Flower Duet

By Kit Wertz

Since we are on vaca­tion this month (as I write this, Casey’s and my kids are play­ing Fris­bee Golf in our par­ents’ back­yard), we’ll for­go the usu­al month­ly book review and tool and just offer a few pho­tos of our work from the past month. We had many wed­dings and events before our trip includ­ing and have many more when we return.

Next month, we’ll cov­er a new book and tool, as well as more fun and cur­rent top­ics in the won­der­ful world of flo­ral design! Thanks for reading!