We absolutely LOVE to honor an unusual request…it’s what we do best!  Last weekend, we had the chance to create a fun arrangement for the Butterworth family.  Of course, when a Butterworth is getting married, there has to be a vintage Mrs. Butterworth syrup container to create an interesting little landscape for.  We did just that, nestling the glass lady amongst some unusual floral elements, and setting her up with a nice pink ‘do.

A few weeks before Mrs. Butterworth, we got a call from Nintendo.  Seems one of their consultants loves fairies…so matt went to work making a miniature fairy from sculpey, while I create an other-worldly garden for her to live in.  We used REAL butterfly wings to attach to her back…seriously awesome.  I can’t believe how great she turned out!  Each hair strand was rolled out individually, and her leaf outfit is incredible!  Matt is a super star at creating ANYTHING!  We are soooo lucky to be able to work together

Earlier in the year, a call came in from LA…someone working on a movie entitled “A Hole in the Fence”.  Seems someone else involved in the movie was staying here in Seattle, and a pertinent arrangement was needed for delivery.  So Matt took some wood from his shop and created some distressed-looking fence pieces (of course one had a hold in it), and we made another fun garden landscape piece!  I love creating these 3-D, diorama type arrangements…it’s kind of like painting with botanical textures and color.

So…if you have any specific requests, ideas, if someone loves beetles or seahorses…if you meet your future husband at the site of a meteorite crash…anything at all…we would love to create a custom arrangement for you!

This year, more than ever before, we are really getting a lot of engaged couples who are into the idea of having plants and terrariums as centerpieces for their wedding.  I LOVE IT!

I love flowers, of course.  BUT.  I love the idea of being able to take home your centerpieces and give them away as gifts (keeping one for yourself, for sure).  Our shop is filled with interesting little terrarium accents, so these pieces can really be customized for each couple.  Colorful dried insects?  Check.  Giant Geodes?  Check.  Fossils?  Check.  Gears and clocks for the steampunk in you?  Check.

Check check check.  We make it our goal to seek out the best natural wonders and oddities, and then combine these with glorious plant and botanical life.  Put it all behind glass and there it is.  An awesome, unique little world to make your wedding special.

Another great thing about terrarium centerpieces?  You can come on in and make your own!  A fun project for the creative DIY-er who wants a hand in decorating their wedding venue.  It might even make a fun bachelorette pre-party.  Call us and set it up…we’ll bring the wine and snacks, you bring your handy bridesmaids.  Everyone make a terrarium centerpiece, and then you can all head out for dinner and drinks.  We’re happy to give you a quick class to show you everything you need for plant-wonder creation.

Doing your own flowers can be stressful.  (Trust me on this one).  But you can do your own terrariums ahead of time, taking the last minute-ness out of your wedding plans.  And who wants to be stressing out just before the wedding?  No one does.

Way back when…back in Madison, Wisconsin…at my first garden-y job, I saw some lithops, or living stones, and bought them.  I loved how different they were, how unusual, and the fact that they try to disguise themselves as stones.  Ever since then, I have had a thing for these amazing little plants, but they can be tricky to care for.  This is the first season EVER IN MY LIFE that they have lived through their dormant season and started producing babies!  BABIES!

This picture doesn’t look like much, which is kinda the hard part.  From December – March, they go dormant, while underground is where the action is at.  During the winter, the “mother” plant begins to die, and the baby is underneath, growing, waiting for spring to pop up and through.  While the mother is dying, it looks like the plant is dying entirely.  That’s the hard part.  It’s during this winter period, when you want to leave these guys alone.  NO WATER.  DON’T PICK AT IT.  I just set them in a sunny window and ignored them.  I am rewarded now, in April, as I can see this hypothesis has worked, and you can see life returning.

The picture on the left shows the babies popping through the mom, kinda human-like.  The picture on the right shows the process a stage or two advanced.  The mom has completely shrivelled up and died, the babies are the new “moms”.

Great success!!!

We get a lot of people from out-of-town who know someone in Seattle that needs a bit of cheering up.   That’s what we’re here for!  We love to create unique pieces for that certain person who likes to see something a little different.

Hydrangea, protea, giant anthurium, bromeliad tips, pussy willow, and free spirit roses…ohhhh, nice!  A little serene, a little tropical, a little cheerful    I think this above piece is a nice mix of garden and exotic.

“Welcome to Mooseport”.  That’s what Matt said when I showed him this piece yesterday.  I can’t stop giggling about it!  This one is a bit more sculptural, which I LOVE!  I also really love using “botanical elements” as I call them, to compliment the flowers.  For this piece, I used dried, contorted pussy willow (the moose-ness of it) with a giant agate slice, which lights up when the sun in behind it.  LOVE LOVE LOVE rocks and sticks and all things that make us reflect on how truly amazing our planet is.  Combining these elements with some flowers makes for a long lasting, artistic piece that gets people talking.  Mooseport now lives at Aster Coffee Lounge in Ballard, made especially for their 3 year anniversary.  We have a floral display there every week, so I always get to stretch my creative legs on these pieces.  FUN.

We lichen them.  Well, I should say we LOVE them, and particularly Matt…he is their number one fan!

Lichens are amazing botanical creatures, and we are just now starting to offer these for sale in our shop.  All of our lichens are locally harvested and pesticide free.   We have a magnifying glass set up in front of some of the prize pieces here at the store, so you can see for yourself what amazing little life forms these guys are.

The picture shows a cladonia “pixie cup” lichen.  Spectacular in miniature terrariums.  Stop by to see these in person before they are gone…and they are seriously going fast!

Easiest plants to care for, hands down.  Lichens were taken into the vacuum of space and released to free float for fifteen days, after which they were brought back to earth STILL ALIVE and THRIVING.  Yes, if you have a black reverse thumb, you can keep these in your house.  They like light and water, like the rest of us living things.  However, should you forget to water (misting is the best way), rather than die, these will go dormant almost indefinitely.  Once they get misted again, they perk up and come back to their normal amazing earthly ways.

Lichens are a symbiosis of two plant forms:  an algae and a fungus.  Periodically, the fungal half goes to spore, and where the spores land, if they come in contact with the right type of algae, a new lichen is born.  There are over 20,000 known varieties of lichen, including the more common “reindeer lichen”, which gets it’s name due to the fact that it is a major food source for reindeer.  Back off, fat Santa!

Spring comes quickly in Seattle, and just as I was starting to get the boo hoos with the gray and cold and rain…I see it.  Yes, that is a cherry tree is blossom, just down the street from our house!  Now through ???? we have forsythia, cherry blossom branches, pussy willow and other faves.  If I were planning a wedding in Seattle, I would pick a date in late February and fill the venue with CHERRY BLOSSOMS!  They just make me happy.  They make everyone happy, and how could they not?  Matt and I went for a walk last Sunday, and it was near 60 degrees and sunny, with the ever-so faint fragrance of..hmmm, what’s that…smells like spring.  Ahhhhh…the Seattle area is a great place to be in the spring

Soft, vintage wedding flowers…I love this aesthetic!  And Heather could not have been a sweeter bride to work with. 

Soft soft pink quicksand roses, lavender sedum blooms, fragrant lilac stock, gray berzillia, dusty miller, ranunculous, a touch of fern curl (her fiance’s last name is “Fernley”, so who could resist?), and a few touches of tillandsia and other epiphytes.  It’s nice to have a little something from your bouquet that can live on after the wedding–a little keepsake to remind you of the magic of the day.

A BIG THANKS to Daniel of Daniel Usenko Photography!  Not only did they do an AMAZING job with the photography for that day, but they were thoughtful enough to send me, lil’ florist, a link to the photos so that I could see them.  Good thinkin’.

In addition to this vintage-y soft wedding palette, we added a few whimsical touches here and there, including an antiqued bird cage for the card table.  Who doesn’t love birds?  Who doesn’t love bird cages?  I think they are sweet sweet sweet!  We used them a few times this past summer for a variety of wedding day fun.

Thanks, Heather and Eric   You guys were awesome to work with!

Yes, it’s one of our favorite-ist things right now.   Making miniature worlds under glass…what could be better?

This one was done for Blue Rhino Graphics.  They brought in a really cool container, and we made a little world inside.  There’s a tower of selenite crystal in the middle that adds just a touch of other worldliness, to an otherwise really natural setting.  I like playing with these two aesthetics, creating a world where just a few things are unusual, like you’ve stepped into a sideways reality or something, things are ALMOST like they are in OUR world…

Terrariums are super easy to care for.  Just don’t overwater.  And add a little layer of charcoal to the bottom. We prefer the ones with a top that you can take on and off, because it just makes life a little easier to give the terrarium a little fresh air, every now and then.  Some people are more purists at heart, and will want to cover the container and let it go.  if you do this, just don’t put it in direct sunlight, and water it, like maybe once every few months.   Of course, every condition is different, so you will want to get to know your specific terrarium, and water when it gets dry.  Which wont’ happen very easily.  We like to choose plants that like it a little shadier, so you can put it anywhere in your house that doesn’t bake in the sun, and enjoy without too much maintenance.

OH, and one more thing…cover the top soil with stones or sand to prevent fungus gnats, which love to find moist environments to live in.  They do no harm to the plants, but might annoy you, with their constant buzzing about.  If you “hide” the dirt, your terrarium won’t be quite as inviting, because they lay their eggs in soil, and if they have to work to find it, it’s not really that worth it.  If you do get fungus gnats in your terrariums, don’t freak out.  If you want to get rid of them, there are some really great little fungus gnat strips that we found.

Our new shipment of Marimo just arrived, and we couldn’t be happier with them!  We have two sizes, large and small, and the large are about the size of a baseball.  The small are just a little smaller than a golf ball.

These are incredibly easy to care for, and need only room temperature water and a little light.  Changing the water about every week is the only real maintenance required.  A perfect plant for the not so green thumb-ers out there.  They sit on the bottom of any container after they are hydrated (these came dry shipped, so they will be sinking over the next few hours as they re-absorb water.)  I like to use an interesting glass vase, fill it with stones or crushed glass, and set the marimo inside.  Room temperature water.  Makes sense…these are not members of the polar bear club!

Marimo are found in just a few locations on the globe, one of them being Lake Akan in Japan.  They line the bottom of the lake in layers, and the wave action tumbles them around to keep their round shape, and to ensure that each side gets a little light for photosynthesis.

These are protected national treasures, and so the ones that are sold are not simply scooped up from the lake.  That would be a no-no.  Most of the marimo you would find for sale in the US have been hand rolled into balls from free floating pieces of the marimo.  They can also be divided to create more.  If you take one, pull it into pieces, and simulate the rolling of the waves, they will all become balls over time.  Over TIME.  These are sloooow growers, maybe 5 millimeters in a year.  So if you are really patient….you can try this experiment for yourself.  I don’t think I’m going to, though.

A fossil of the extinct nautiloid cephalopod

We brought a few home to the store, so that we could play with them in terrariums.  These are not uncommon, and are found en masse in limestone.  One theory is that they all die together after mating.  Fascinating.  We only have three of them for now.  You can visit them at our weird and fun little store