England Blooms in Paris By Drew Babb
Photography by Sarah Huntington
PSO ROCKS! - FEBRUARY 2021
The triumphant return of our ever-popular ROCK SHOW! PSO’s phenomenal rock band will take the stage to perform timeless Rock hits from the last fifty years. If you have cabin fever there is no better way to lift up your spirits than to rock out with the PSO!
From Darkness Light - APRIL 2021 PSO YOUNG PEOPLE’Sto CONCERT UPCOMING PSO VIRTUAL CONCERTS at BUCHANAN HALL, UPPERVILLE: PSO ROCKS! - FEBRUARY 2021
2020-2021
PSO SHOWCASE - JUNE 2021
VIRTUAL CONCERT AND SEASON TICKETS: www.piedmontsymphony.org The PSO is Generously Funded in Part By:
The Margaret Spilman Bowden Foundation Nicolaas and Patricia Kortlandt Fund The Wise Foundation Luminescence Foundation
The Phillip A. Hughes Foundation
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The Crossfields Group
W
hen Queen Elizabeth II visited Virginia during the 1976 Bicentennial, then Governor Mills Godwin made a toast. “Your majesty, as long as there is a Virginia, there will always be an England.” Paraphrasing and bending the Guv’s words, one could say, “As long as Stephanie Fasold works her magic, English flowers will always bloom. Stephanie Fasold and her pals Fasold fashions exuberant flower creations for weddings, parties and events. Her floral enterprise is called Lavender Green (lavendergreen.net). She says she’s a florist, but as the photos attest, artist is more like it. Fasold’s affinity with English flowers is neither latent, nor learned. She is not an Anglophile. She is English. She hails from the seaside town of Cromer, County Fit for a Wedding of Norfolk, on England’s eastern coast. One derivation of her birthplace’s name is “a gap in the cliffs,” which is poetic since she lives in the tiny Fauquier village of Paris, which, itself, is in the Ashby’s Gap, just beneath Mount Weather. Her love of flowers sprouted early. She remembers her mother filled every room of their house with joyous pots and pitchers of fresh-cut beauties. She tattles on her Mum: “She would visit grand estates, she’d sneak a cut rose in her pocket, poke it in the ground, and thanks to England’s soil and climate, we’d have a bush next year!” From amateur to professional arranger took a creative path. She’d call a famous florist in London, volunteer to come in and watch and help. She’d sponge up every trick in every florist’s book. How did she arrive in the U.S.? She took a year’s gig as a nanny in Silver Spring, then met a Yank stationed at Fort Meyer and married him. But the flower bug bite was deep. She saved her money and flew to Paris and London and again volunteered to work and learn. No salary. But an impressive ROI. Stephanie’s work regularly beautifies events at the nearby Ashby Inn. A large event often consumes a week of 12-hour days, She reels in Now that’s a centerpiece local and regional arrangers, many of whom she met (pardon the affectation) whilst a member of the Washington National Cathedral Flower Guild. Onsite, hovering in her ivy-encrusted barn workshop, are three eager associates. Two vintage Pugs, Sarah and Elizabeth, and a slightly younger Beagle named Clementine. So the question must be asked. What defines English flower arrangement? She answers, without equivocation: “Bold! Roses. Primroses. Bluebells. Violets. Peonies. Dahlias. Twigs. Herbs. Portals. Pillars. Arcs. All manner of unpredictable components. And did I mention roses?” As we depart, Stephanie Fasold presents our photographer with a sublime long-stem pink rose. She waves her hand with a benediction: “Snip if off when you get home. At an angle, naturally. In a day or so it’ll be a big as a cabbage!”
Go Green Middleburg | Winter 2021
