England Blooms in Paris

England Blooms in Paris

By Drew Babb| Photography by Sarah Huntington

Stephanie Fasold and her pals

When Queen Elizabeth II visited Virginia during the 1976 Bicentennial, then Governor Mills Godwin made a toast.

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 of Norfolk, on England’s eastern coast. One derivation of herbirthplace’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.

Stephanie’s work regularly beautifies events at the nearby Ashby Inn. A large event often

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.

consumes a week of 12-hour days, She reels in 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!”

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