Fine ceramics for your table, kitchen and garden produced in Memphis, Tennessee
Fine ceramics for your table, kitchen and garden produced in Memphis, Tennessee
1:52
Early paperwhites nestled into my porch pots are beginning to emerge, joined by quiet green and white ivy and some remaining alyssum in this exuberant cobalt pedestaled tulipiere. I had grand plans but flu energy and here is where we are on this first day of 2024. This is my 6th year of weekly flowers. New year, same me.
2:52
A quiet first week of the year, winter settling in. Violas in pots bring cheer. This bud vase is tiny and “vintage”, at least 10 years old. It is the size of a head of garlic, perfect for the tiny violas that fill the containers at my back door.
3:52
I clipped blooming camellias clockwise from top- Yuletide, Winter’s Joy (a set of two as a Christmas gift), yuletide bud, Winter’s Snowman. The Winter’s series is a cold-hardy hybrid camellia (down to -10). I have a few of them, and am investing in more as I replace plants killed by last year’s flash freeze. Though we’re zone 8 we do get temp plunges into the single digits. I mulched all of my tender roses and camellias with shredded oak leaves and tented with frost cloth. I’ll enjoy this pedestaled bowl of blossoms this week.
4:52
Thank goodness for forced holiday bulbs! My annual trader joe’s winter bulb garden provided multiple stems of white amaryllis (as they grow too tall and fall over-despite staking- I cut them for vases). My paperwhites are in 10” hurricane vases this year on the dining room table. I cut a few stems to add to the amaryllis. This is a newer tulipiere that I’ve been saving for something fabulous. I think these amaryllis fit the bill.
5:52
My first hellebore, “winter’s bliss”, saved from the snow and ice and single digits (though I know the plants are fine with snow, I didn’t want the first blossom to be killed by the extreme cold) by an upturned flowerpot and leftover christmas boughs. Also a first, the first piece made from my November drawings from the Greek collections at the Met, the first pieces I threw this year. More to come!
6:52
The tiniest treasures. I’ve been keeping an eye on my little snowdrop patches, eagerly awaiting their blooms. I’ve planted and planted and planted them but to be honest, they don’t care for warm weather or clay soil, both of which are identifying markers of my garden. I treasure these little blossoms and made a few very small vases just to highlight tiny blossoms. This one is blue porcelain and is not quite 2” tall. I use it for violets, snowdrops, and other miniatures.
7:52
Winter flowers- hellebores, snowdrops, and winter honeysuckle in a tiny urn vase. The weather has been warm but bulbs are slow to emerge (because they know more cold is coming?). I’m grateful for these reliable winter bloomers.
8:52
Hallelujah for daffodils! It is frigid this weekend so though many blossoms are peeking up, they are still closed. I picked a few handfulls and popped them in a glass of warm water before filling this new tulipiere with the earliest of my bulbs. I know I have “ice follies,” the white with yellow cups, some antique paperwhites (which usually bloom in December and January but were slowed by the snow), campernelles from Louisiana, and all of the tete a tetes that I’ve brought from grocery store floral departments and planted to form a spring border in some of my beds.
I love this tulipiere, which I threw in two pieces- a plain vase which I trimmed, sliced crescent moons into, then gently coaxed those pieces into spouts, and a pedestal base to elevate the piece. This one is 9” tall, which may be the tallest vase I’ve ever made. More to come!
9:52
Before I go all in to daffodil season, I wanted to give the winter-blooming shrubs and perennials their due. I collected white flowering quince, some very early cherry tree, and my pink, dark purple, green, and white hellenores to adorn this new handbuilt flower brick. I bought a handmade but slipcast trapezoidal vase at a neighborhood estate sale in November for a few dollars. It is imperfect, the wrong color, but to my eye utterly charming. It holds paintbrushes and my cordless dremel in the studio. Early this year I made a template of it and Larissa and I began working on this vase. As a very geometric form it lends itself to many additions: I threw a pedestal base for one, which I’ve featured with tulips, and in this case, a top with a center slot for water and pierced holes for stems. In thinking of my delft project, I glazed it glossy white and added blue linear decorations to emphasize the geometry of this piece. I will definitely be making more of these .
10:52
Spring is here! The very earliest daffs are fading (I have jsut a few ice follies, usually my first) standing. The campernelles are giong strong, my favorite jonquils (the very tiny, sweetly scented babies) are popping up, and I’m in daffodil heaven. I put these into the vase I consider perfect for this season- a 7” tall column of restraint so the exuberance of the flowers can shine.
11:52
My hyacinths erupted into bloom this week, scenting the entire front garden with their distinctive perfume. What started out at a few spent grocery bulbs has grown into several thick patches of mid-spring bloom. I aded early flowering vinca, and white and yellow daffs. The combined fragrance is incredible. I am enjoying playing with this trapezoidal form based on a vase I bought at an estate sale. I added a brick top to this version and decorated it with birds borrowed from a favorite french transferware platter.
12:52
Every year at my birthday the local lilacs begin to bloom. I didn’t grow up with these glorious flowers but discovered them in muy 30s. I had one for years, but it disliked our hot summers and died. My neighbor, who hails from PA, has nurtured a lilac in the middle of her yard for 10 years and encourages me to cut from it. I was delighted to cut blossoms to tuck into my smallest ginger jar this weekend. I have these in two sizes in my shop.
13:52
It’s still quiet as my garden wakes, but you can see the bones of my initial blue and white and green garden plan emerging. Though I have admittedly strayed from my initial plans, the last of the hellebores and daffodils (Thalia, my favorite is solid white, and Sir Winston Churchill is so fragrant) are all white or mostly white varieties. The white/pink viburnum never lasts long enough- its scent is divine. I added white lilac that is blooming for the first time, all in my blue tulipiere.
14:52
Alleluia, Alleluia!
The first roses, the next-to-last daffs and tulips, ivy and vibunbum in a washed coral floral medallion brick. I. can’t tell you how wonderful this smells.
15:52
Over the last several years I’ve begun a collection of black or nearly black flowers and folliage. Here, hellebores, begonias, and volunteer columbine in a black “farmers market” vase.
16:52
I have never not ever in my 20 years of growing peonies been able to harvest an entire armload of peonies. Here they are in one of my low flower bowls, perfect for peonies, roses, dahlias, or any other luscious blossom.
17:52
It never ceases to thrill me when my ranunculus bloom. They aren’t exactly tricky, but are often grown in protected environments- low or high tunnels- to keep early spring freezes from killing the plants or damaging the blossoms. Some years I lose them all, some years I feel like I have a bountiful harvest. Some years they seem to be perennials, though this set is all in its first bloom. I popped these 12 stems into a new lattice-gridded brick for a very casual, colorful arrangement for my entry table.
18:52
My second round of peonies is finishing up. I have two varietites, Festiva Maxima, which came from my mother’s garden in NC (where, frankly, it was happier as they like cold winters and ours are not reliably cold), and Miss America (at left), blooming for the first time. I tucked each stem into this washed coral brick decorated with a poppy medallion.
