BLOOMS & BRANCHES
Fill your home with foraged flowers and natural elements
Ariella Chezar is a natural-born forager. The flower farmer and floral designer finds an abundance to work with in the Berkshires. First come the hellebores, snowdrops and narcissus. Then more spring favorites — tulips, ranunculus, pansies and Johnny Jump Ups.
Chezar teaches gardeners how to forage and arrange their spoils into artful, natureinspired compositions in her new book, “Seasonal Flower Arranging: Fill Your Home With Blooms, Branches, and Foraged Materials All Year Round” ($25, Ten Speed Press), which has step-by-step instructions for 39 seasonal floral arrangements and projects. She is also a featured speaker at Texas Design Week’s Design in Bloom program Tuesday at Houston Design Center.
Her inspiration came from her mother, “an artist of multiple mediums,” said Chezar, who serves as creative director at FlowerSchool New York. “Everything she touched was an extension of her creative self.” How did Chezar get into flower farming? “My parents were avid gardeners, and I’ve always grown things, too,” she said. “I was driven by the desire to grow flowers sustainably, without pesticides and implementing organic practices.”
What she doesn’t use in her arrangements or workshops, she sells to other floral designers.
“I also have an insatiable appetite for flowers and like almost nothing more than
giving armfuls to friends — and for that I need hundreds and thousands of flowers,” Chezar said. “It’s pretty amazing to be able to grow for my events and workshops.”
But she doesn’t stop at her garden. “I forage for everything from grasses, to foliage, berries, fruits on the branch and wildflowers.”
In her book, she outlines her rules for foraging: “If a plant is invasive, or growing on the side of the road (think grapevine or Queen Anne’s lace), I’ll happily do some ‘civic pruning.’ If what I’m looking for is on someone’s property, I’ll knock and ask permission politely, even offering to pay for my finds.”
Branches often provide the backbone of her designs. “I love adding fruits and berries on the branch — I love their texture and how they communicate abundance,” she said.
One majestic arrangement in “Seasonal Flower Arranging” features flowering almond verbena branches with purple irises. Vines, such as clematis, wend their way out of the vessel and onto the table or mantel. In the book, she explains the construction of an arrangement — base layer, focal flowers, filler flowers — and supplies recipes for many of the arrangements.
Chezar advocates using flowers and plants that are locally grown. A favorite spring arrangement for Houston? “Ranunculus and tulips.”
Flower lovers might consider signing up for one of her three-day workshops; she has one coming up in June in the Berkshires (ariellaflowers.com). She also conducts workshop/tours in Amsterdam and Antigua.
“My workshops are an immersive experience in beauty and creativity,” she said. “Open to flower lovers at every level, they are an opportunity for students to either explore a new language or hone skills. They are three to four days in a beautiful place, eating delicious nourishing food, being surrounded with the ultimate medium and spending time with those who share the same passion.”