Jewel Tone Flowers for Summer and Fall Weddings

Some of the garden beds are slowing down, but there are still flowers for gathering into lovely bouquets. Lots of jewel tone colors and spiky flowers show up in late summer.

They include very fragrant African Blue Basil

Feathery soft wheat celosia,

and Black and Blue Salvia

Other flowers in this bouquet include zinnias, dahlias, sedum, crested celosia, and gomphrena. Perilla provides both flower spikes and rich aubergine foliage. These are all great choices for brides who desire locally grown flowers for their late summer and fall weddings.

This October there should also be a small showing of chrysanthemums, and for next year I am planning to have several varieties of floribunda roses to offer as well. Many will be in rich jewel tones, but I am planning to have some soft blush and peachy colors as well!

Garden Flowers for Summer and Fall Weddings- Gomphrena

Winter is holding on tightly. Mid February usually shows signs of early spring- but not this year!

So as we prepare to drop below ten degrees tonight, I can't help but think hopefully not much longer!!!

Next week it will be time to start my first batch of gomphrena. These rounded button-like flowers are great for summery garden styled wedding bouquets.

They are great accent flowers that come in pink, lavender-pink, white and violet-purple.

Seeds can be sown successively for an extended bloom period. Plants grow slowly until the temps begin to warm up. But once you add summer heat, they begin to take off. 

I am able to gather flowers well into fall and with some protection I can even harvest up to early November!

Vibrant Colors for Teresa and Ben's Fall Wedding

 

It's so exciting to have that first meeting with my bride. I can't wait to hear about her fiancé and how they met, to see pictures of her wedding gown and the bridesmaids' dresses, and talk and talk about wedding flowers.

 I met Teresa last April- she and Ben were planning an October wedding- late October when autumn leaves are vibrant. Teresa wanted the colors for her wedding flowers to be vibrant too!  Saturated hues of orange, plum and burgundy to play against the bridesmaids' dresses of rich plum. And for her bouquet- a flirty ostrich feather collar to match the ostrich feather embellishments on her gorgeous gown and birdcage veil.

   And of course she looked absolutely stunning!

Table centerpieces were collections of vintage vases and bottles and jars that Teresa had gathered and decorated with burlap and lace. Each filled with a posy of flowers and herbs. 

Ben wanted something different for the boutonnieres for the men in the wedding party. So we went with purple gomphrena and horsetail reeds, and for his bout- an ostrich feather to match Teresa's gown.

It was a joyful celebration.

And now it's time for happily ever after. Praying God's blessing for you newlyweds!!!
PS
Be sure to check out more great pictures of this wonderful wedding at Windy Peak Photography

Gomphrena for Summer Weddings

The seed catalogs are coming, and garden plans for summer flower beds at Springwell Gardens are under way. One flower that  always finds a niche in the gardens is gomphrena.

  I usually grow the Audray Pink and Audray Red Purple, and sometimes the Bicolor Rose. 

 Their clover-like blooms are such charmers in bouquets and centerpiece designs.

The flowers start up in early summer and when things heat up in July, the plants really begin to crank out the blooms.

  And they don't stop until frost!

The designs in the pictures above also feature zinnias, dahlias and lisianthus.
A good source for seeds for the Audray series is Harris Seeds and the Bicolor Rose can be found online at Johnny's Select Seeds. Note: these flowers are GREAT for drying for Christmas and winter designs too!

Late Summer Bouquet of Pink Gomphrena and Scented Geraniums

Flowers from the late summer garden offer lots of interesting textures and fragrance. Gomphrena packs a lot of color and texture especially when flower heads are clustered together.
And for fragrance- nothing beats the bright green leaves of Scented Geranium. From citrus to cinnamon to old rose- there's a lot to choose from. They make a lovely collar for a summer or fall bouquet.

Here they are combined with some of other late summer garden favorites...

Feathery flower spikes of wheat celosia (pictured above on the left hand side) and African Blue Basil (pictured in the lower right hand corner below).
Pink lisianthus and pink and white zinnias round out this sweet little bouquet.
These flowers are ideal for autumn bouquets as well. As the days grow shorter these plants just continue to churn out the blooms- some of them until frost!

Gomphrena- A Lot to Love in a Little Bloom

I have started planting seeds of some of my favorite summer flowers,
and I would like to introduce you to one that produces oodles and oodles of blooms throughout the summer and fall. It's Gomphrena!
These are petite clover-like flowers that on first glance, can be overlooked, but look again and you will see they are perfect for adding a touch of sweetness to bouquets, corsages and flower arrangements.
Gomphrena or globe amaranth (I like the common name better!) comes in a variety of colors including rose pink, bicolor pink, purple, salmon and red.

While not the "star" of most floral designs, it definitely adds a cheery note as shown in the centerpiece above that also includes antique green hydrangeas, zinnias and Majolica spray roses, and the Maid of Honor bouquet below that has purple gomphrena, yellow Gerber daisies, and Kermit mums.

It's also a great flower for detail work like boutonnieres and corsages

Gomphrena is a flower that doesn't beg for your attention, but is quite happy making the other flowers around it look "good".

AND it is a wonderful flower to grow in your own garden too! A great source for seeds is Johnny's Selected Seeds, and if you live in the Raleigh-Cary area, Campbell Road Nursery sells the plants by the six pack starting in mid April or so.

Autumn Wedding Bouquet in Jewel Tones

Well Autumn is almost here... the hydrangeas in this bouquet are dressed in antique shades of green and burgundy, the tradescantia is a dark eggplant and the zinnias are a bright berry wine color.
Some of the flowers are slowing down such as the zinnias and velvety cockscomb. Other flowers such as gomphrena are still brimming over with new buds. Their magenta purple globes pair well with the zinnias.
There were even a few chartreuse heads of euphorbia that added a nice contrast to the gomphrena. It's a lovely bouquet to welcome the new season!

Late Summer Blooms from the Garden- Gomphrena

September is the beginning of the glory season for these cheerful little blooms. This flower is called gomphrena and it blooms from late June through mid November. But late summer and fall is when it really starts to take off. The picture above is a gathering of purple gomphrena. These were picked for Mikki and Hector's wedding last week.
This is the pink version. Both the purple and the pink are a new variety in my garden called "Audray", and so far they have been performing very well.
Here's my youngest daughter, Judy, who agreed to hold a bunch so that you could get an idea of the bloom's actual size. They are definitely petite and are what I call part of the support cast in my floral designs.
Still they are some of my favorite flowers. Gomphrena dries very well, and is great for winter and Christmas designs. The picture above shows clusters of gomphrena nestled in this pink and red Christmas bouquet.
And I am planning on adding a few the fresh purple blooms to a "Toss Bouquet" for my bride, Rachel, this weekend!

Summer Weddings- Scott & Sarah

No matter what the weather- it could be buckets of rain or blazing hot or an unexpected snow or WHATEVER- the most important thing is that it's YOUR WEDDING DAY, and soon your lives will be joined together for Life, and that always makes this day a MOST wonderful day!
Last Saturday, Sarah and Scott were very blessed with normal summer weather, but I am sure it would not have mattered. August 13th was their wedding day!
I loved having the opportunity to meet some of Sarah and Scott's family and friends. I even got to talk to Scott for a few moments and his Dad (we talked about gardening!), and of course I loved seeing Sarah and her bridesmaids all excited, her mom, Sally and Aunt Elaine and all the others who had come together for such a joyous occasion. I also saw my sweet bride Anna and her husband Josh!
I paused for a few moments to watch their special day unfold, and as I do for all my couples, I whispered a prayer for God's blessing on their wedding.

The vibrant colors of the flowers kept everything cheerful. The bouquets for the bridesmaids were filled with Gerber daisies, purple stock and purple carnations, green button mums and soft purple asters. I also used antique green hydrangea heads with touches of teal blue.

Sarah's bouquet was filled with purple hydrangeas, stock, dark purple lisianthus, green button mums and Spider mums and the wonderful fragrance freesia and scented geraniums.
I am so happy for this sweet couple who have been married ONE week. Praying God's blessing for you!!!

Sarah's Bridesmaid Luncheon at Caffe Luna

It was wonderful to have the privilege of designing Sarah and Scott's wedding flowers. And I was so excited to receive a call from her Aunt Elaine in Georgia a few months back to do the flowers for the bridesmaids' luncheon too!
I try hard to listen to what my brides desire as they tell me about their wedding flowers. And as Sarah shared I could envision gardens, carefree flowers and BRIGHT colors.
I love the richness of the play between complimentary colors such as purple and yellow and how well they pair with bright greens and yellow-greens. The asters look just picked and the purple globe gomphrenas and scented geraniums WERE. And what's more cheerful and carefree than yellow Gerber daisies?
Some of these designs would have to fit on long narrow tables. So I created a couple of two tone ribbon bands studded with green button mums that would join petite vases of flowers together.
Two larger cylinder vases were designed for a couple of round tables. These vases sported a ribbon belt with a bright green button mum.
Here are the flowers all ready to go!
And here they are at Cafe Luna in downtown Raleigh ready to welcome Sarah and all her bridesmaids. And be a part of the festivities the day before the Wedding!