Books Bound to Please Flowers
Foraged Flora
An easy, straightforward guide to growing and showing flowers, this book offers practical advice on what flowers to grow, when, and how to plant a garden. It includes profiles and growing instructions on eighty-five popular flowering plants and a zone hardiness map. The last chapters are devoted to color, supplies, and step-by-step floral designs. Nothing complicated required, just a good shovel, some gloves, basic containers, and a selection of annuals and perennials. A perfect instructional read for a novice gardener!
Collaborators Louesa Roebuck, artist/floral designer, and Sarah Lonsdale, design editor/writer, give readers a new vision for flowers and arranging. Organized by the month, the book focuses on voluminous and diminutive designs created by foraged or gleaned plants and flowers. Roadside fennel, fruit trees, garden roses, a garland of bay laurel, moss encrusted branches all become the inspiration for unusual and often showy displays. This fabulous book is an artistic invitation to head outside and seek the beauty of the natural world.
Flowers is distributed by Publications International Ltd. with arrangements provided by stylist Lorraine Rudin.
A Year in Flowers Flora Magnifica This is a picture book, but as stated in the foreword, “not an ordinary one.” Truly, it is an art gallery on pages, bound with a cover. The artist and visionary Makoto Azuma and photographer Shunsuke Shiinoki (highlighted in the March 2019 By Design issue) are partners in Jardins des Fleurs in Tokyo, which specializes in bespoke flowers for personal and corporate events. Azuma’s style is best described on the pair’s website as a “rage of floral expression,” which he has successfully created between these covers. The book is a wildly stunning and thought-provoking array of floral material. Thankfully, the designer has included an index of flowers by page to peruse in the back of the book.
This highly anticipated new book by pioneering flower farmer, floral designer, and founder of Floret Flower Farm, Erin Benzakein has arrived. It follows on the heels of her award winning American Horticultural Society tome, Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden. After sharing the basics needed to set up a workspace, the floral materials and step-by-step design lessons are arranged by season. One of the unique features this design book provides is a visual seasonal guide highlighting structural foliage, supporting or transitional foliage, textural foliage, supporting or transitional flowers, focal flowers, and accent flowers. This book is a design detailed feast for the eyes.
BY DESIGN
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