Poppy bouquet

First of all apologies to anyone who is reading this all in capital letters - it seems to be some blip with typepad and is showing up weird on some people's machines and not on others.  I am trying to sort it out - but as I don't know what has happened it is taking a while.  Sorry.
This weekend I have been up in Glenshee arranging flowers for a wedding in a beautiful country house hotel up there - the weather was glorious and the drive up completely captivating.
Often when brides come to me to discuss their wedding flowers, it turns out that they want a particular flower to be at the centre of the day - they may be completely flexible about the rest of the flowers but they will have a bloom that has an emotional resonance that they want to carry through the day.  Most commonly it is sweet peas, which are often associated with grandparents and childhood gardens.  For Beth, the bride this weekend, it was bright red oriental poppies.
The photo shows her finished bouquet - the poppies are mixed with scented white sweet rocket. This is the most difficult bouquet I have ever made, not in its structure or scale but in the need to get the poppies so that they would be at a perfect stage for the ceremony.  In the photo there was still a couple of hours to go - by the timeBeth walked into the library in her wedding dress the flowers should have been fully open. It has been a week of timing the opening rate of poppies, keeping buds in the fridge and a week of permanently crossed fingers. I love a challenge.

Comments

[carolyn]

I never mentioned the caps as I thought it was something you had chosen - relieved it will soon go away as it is awfully difficult to read. By the way you have a spam comment on the Blogger blog.

[Alice C]

I thought that the turquoise capitals were a style statement...

[Jane]

Well - it seems to be a browser thing - the capital letters show up if you access via Internet Explorer but not via Firefox. . . I had a look at the turquoise uppercase version yeuch!
so sorry,
J
x

[Pipany]

I'd forgotten all about keeping flowers in the fridge to delay opening. I love the red of those poppies but ours have all finished now so will collect the seeds for next year. xx

[marie]

O.K. I think that I have just ruined that theory ~ I access via Firefox and I have been reading your posts in capital letters and wondering, like Carolyn, whether you had chosen to write them like this!

I love the poppies Jane ~ very pretty. I looked for Hetty's Pincushion after I read about it in your recent post, but couldn't find it in any of my books ~ does it have another (botanical) name?

Thanks for the Purple Cow recommendation ~ I hadn't come across this before.

Marie x

[send flowers to Philippines]

Thank you for this wealth of information the poppies are mixed with scented white sweet rocket are really fabulous I like it so much.

vee