Foraged Flowers by Leilani Marie Labong

Home & Garden Make it

Cascade of clematis p. 47

SE A SON AL S T YLE

FORAGED FLOWERS

Create beautifully untamed bouquets using finds from the wild or your own backyard.

Photographs by

T H O M A S J. S T O RY

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Home & Garden

SE A SON AL S T YLE

Make it

Harvest blend “Cut just a few flowers and buds from each marigold plant to make sure blooms keep coming,” Gill says of the small bouquet. For the larger one, Gill explains, “I arranged cherry tomato stems in my hand before placing them in a bottle.”

“Wild materials have interesting shapes and imperfections that add character.” —Max Gill

while creating flower arrangements for a wedding, Max Gill found himself short of greenery and had to improvise. “It was the night before the big event,” he recalls. “I was frantically foraging a friend’s garden for pittosporum clippings and fennel fronds.” The arrangements turned out just fine. In fact, their beautiful “undoneness” has become a trademark of Gill’s business, Max Gill Design. Much of the plant material that he uses for his arrangements comes from the wildly abundant quarter-acre lot behind his Berke42 m a y 2 0 1 3

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ley home. But he also forages from his friends’ gardens. “I like to call them ‘community-supported flowers,’ ” says Gill, who moonlights as the floral director at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse. To make his arrangements, he snips magnolia leaves or raspberry brambles from Waters’s garden (with her permission). Alta Tingle, proprietor of The Gardener shop in Berkeley, has given him access to her eucalyptus trees, for their blue-gray foliage. Gill often yanks rattlesnake grass out of sidewalk cracks—their spikelets make great bouquet “charms.” He never practices vigilante pruning at public parks, though. “If I’m going to forage, I want karma on my side.” By

LEILANI MARIE LABONG

Home & Garden

Make it

Strawberry cups “For this study in strawberries, cut just enough foliage for foundation and structure, then add the taller stems of immature alpine fruit and almost-ripe ‘Earliglow’ strawberries. If you can find them, add a few fleetingly pristine strawberry blossoms at the end.”

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• Catmint Grows to 2-3 feet tall and wide; bluish-purple ﬂowers; silver-green leaves. This aromatic herb is irresistible to cats. Pick and dry edible leaves to sprinkle over your cat’s food, or stuff in an old sock for an instant cat toy.

Home & Garden

• Catnip Grows two feet tall, roughly 18 inches wide; small, purple-ﬂecked white ﬂowers. Catnip is the ultimate cat aphrodisiac; felines love rolling on and nibbling its fuzzy, gray-green leaves. • Blue oat grass Blue-gray, narrow leaves form graceful fountain 2-3 feet tall and wide. Think of this as a healthy salad bar for your cat; felines enjoy chewing on the thin blades.

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tRiCkS OF tHe tRaDe

TOOLS Gill uses bonsai shears to make pre-

cise cuts (he always has a pair in his truck’s glove compartment). He transports larger clippings in square buckets, and smaller materials in mason jars placed in a box. “WOW POWER” FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS

Make it 1

Chocolate & mints

“For this fragrant composition, use herbs as a foil for chocolate cosmos, adding them in bunches of five to seven stems at a time. The mint geranium is the final touch; a botanical bow, if you will .” 2

Sprays of gold

“Love-in-a-puff is my favorite weed— otherworldly, with tiny white flowers and chartreuse seedpods. I’ve found it growing from cracks in the sidewalk. Use the cuttings to arrange a ‘nest’ in the vase, then add the Rudbeckia [R. laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’]. Finish by tucking in a few clusters of unripe ‘Sweet 100’ tomatoes.” 3

Berries & blooms

“The sooner you prune blooming clematis plants, the more likely they are to flower again later in the season. Nestle lavender clematis blooms and their tender vines into a matrix of green privet berry. Make sure to leave the privet stems long enough so that they appear to spill out of the compote.” ON PAG E 41

Cascade of clematis “On a magenta clematis [C. ‘Madame Julie Correvon’], trim the longest stems of the lower leaves, place them into the vase, and let them spill down to the counter. Tuck in shorter stems, which twine together for support. Add cut flowers and buds last.”

In Gill’s dynamic silhouettes, clematis spills, fruit-heavy branches arch, and hellebores nod. He also loves black chervil (for its fernlike silhouette), as well as blueberry flowers and true geraniums. MAINTENANCE Giving stem ends a sharp cut before placing them in clean water and displaying bouquets out of direct sunlight helps them last longer.

ReSOURCeS

If you don’t have the flora you need at home, pick it up at one of these spots.

ARIZONA ATELIER DE LAFLEUR At this shop in Tucson’s

historic train depot, owner Colleen LaFleur specializes in desert-adapted plants like cactus and native tree seedlings. lafleur plantscapes.com.

CALIFORNIA LOUESA Trained in fine art, Louesa Roebuck

finds beauty in the wild places around the Bay Area. At her mini shop tucked into San Francisco’s H.D. Buttercup, she sells local and foraged vines, branches, and blooms. louesaroebuck.com.

COLORADO FIELD FLORALS In Paonia, Ashley Krest cultivates some materials in her fields, while foraging others—such as chokecherries, goldenrod, and wild sweet pea—from her property. fieldflorals.com.

OREGON

• Shield with baskets. If your cat likes to roll in your plantings, use inverted wire baskets to prevent crushing. • Border control. Cats don’t like getting their feet poked any more than we do; push short, sharp sticks in the ground around the delicate plants, or scatter thorny clippings from rose bushes. • Keep the grounds moist. This simple step can deter digging, but make sure you don’t overwater your plants.

BY THE BUNCH Owner Rachel Galloway

stocks her Portland shop with locally grown and foraged finds, which in early summer may include Equisetum, garlic scapes, and maidenhair ferns. bythebunchpdx.com.

WASHINGTON SEATTLE WHOLESALE GROWERS MARKET COOPERATIVE During public shopping hours

on Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., this alliance of Washington, Oregon, and Alaska farmers sells high-quality seasonal cuts. Buy a $5 day pass, and bring buckets for taking your picks home. seattlewholesalegrowers market.com.—Debra Prinzing & Johanna Silver

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