HOW TO GROOM YOUR BLOOMS
You can’t blame floral and event designer Fleur McHarg for being obsessed with flowers. After all, her mother, milliner Wendy Mead, named her “Fleur,” French for flower.
The Melbourne-based style icon brings artistry to her arrangements, as well as her flower photography. Her sophisticated use of color and proportion is anything but ordinary. She shares her expertise in a new book, “The Flower Expert: Ideas and Inspiration for a Life with Flowers” (Thames & Hudson, $39.95), due out March 5. It’s filled with stunning photographs and her practical advice for growing, arranging and photo-styling flowers.
“Spring is the time to style bright pastels,” she says. “In this arrangement (pictured at top), I wanted to create a modern Aussie feel by offsetting the bright pastel flowers against a blue backdrop. Because it’s a ‘hot’ arrangement, I chose a summer-sky blue to make the flowers really pop. If I’d used a cool china-blue or dark-blue backdrop, it would have dulled the impact of the flowers rather than enhancing it.”
McHarg offers us her thoughts on her favorite cutting flowers just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Roses: “Roses exemplify grace and elegance, and they die gracefully, too. Allow the petals to fall gently around the base of the vase — the quiet fading of the flower is part of its beauty.”
Peonies: “Peonies combine well with other pretty flowers. Depending on the season, I might mix them with lilac, guelder rose
(viburnum) or azalea. Of course, these blousy ladies also do perfectly well all on their own. Pairing white peonies with dark foliage creates a dramatic, Dutch Masters-type feel.”
Ranunculus: “Ranunculus are like a modern, lowmaintenance rose. They look good with almost anything and have a contemporary, fresh feel. Young brides love them.
“The stems of cut ranunculus start to smell very quickly. However, just as a daily shower can tame one’s troublesome body odor problem, so too can a daily change of vase water minimize the stink of rotting flower stems — and help the flowers last longer, too.” Poppies: “Poppies like to have their stems scalded in boiling water or flamed briefly before being put into cold water. You can encourage a closed bud to open by gently peeling off the outer casing.”