Flowers and Gardens
In the month of June, peonies blooming in my garden…
I am an amateur gardener, lover of gardens…and all the beauty that springs to life from them. Show me a pretty peony (Paeonia spp), and I am all over it. Ask me which of the six flower types of peony: anemone, single, Japanese, semi-double, double, and bomb, are in my garden, and I will have to get back to you on that one, but I do love a challenge! My latest quest is to introduce the intoxicating scent of ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ into our garden, but, first I have to find it.
I am a doer and a maker in the garden, happily tugging at weeds and tilling the soil with my bare hands, taking pride in just how messy I can get in the process. Who doesn’t love pinching back suckers on a tomato vine between their fingers as the fresh earthy scent escapes from your hands? I could go on, but you get the picture, dirt and all.
I love flower and gardening books, especially the ones that let me slip into the life of another creative soul and learn from them. I am always inspired and excited to interpret their work into my own.
Shall we talk about books?
Let me tell you about a stunning one written by the wonderfully talented Sandra Sigman, an award-winning floral designer and owner of the gorgeous shop Les Fleurs located in Andover, Massachusetts. Lucky me, her shop is only an hour away from Tahilla Farm. Sandra arranges beautiful flowers in the French style, chic and romantic, and sells a selection of specially curated decorative items from France in her shop. She is as warm and generous as the woman who introduced us, Sharon Santoni from My French Country Home. Sandra and I sat down in her shop one chilly morning to talk about life and found all sorts of connections. I felt like I was sitting down with an old friend. Fingers crossed, she hopes to join me for a Tahilla Gathering event. That would be so much fun!
Sandra is generous with her technique tutorials, offering guidance for experienced and budding floral designers. She takes you through French floral design principles, tells you all about containers, and provides a beautiful selection of French floral recipes.
As Sandra Sigman learned while living in Paris in her twenties, the French consider each floral arrangement a unique work of art filled with passion, movement, texture, and surprise. In French Blooms, Sigman shares the distinct design principles she learned from her favorite Parisian florist, and offers tutorials, with images and instructions for creating French-inspired arrangements for different areas of the home.
I love her helpful sources for bulbs, flowers, garden accessories, and decor. This is a must-have book for any flower lover and the perfect gift for people who love to create with flowers. You can read more about Sandra and her shop here.
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Have you read this book?
It simply feeds my gardening soul…all the glorious and messy bits of it.
I learned about it through a fabulous podcast, Why Women Grow on Audible. I enjoyed it so much that I listened to all seven episodes twice. Alice Vincent has inspiring conversations with designers, chefs, entrepreneurs, and writers in their gardens. They touch on all the stories that resonate- soil, sisterhood, and survival.
On the podcast:
About the book:
Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance.
Wise, curious and sensitive, Why Women Grow follows Alice in her search for answers, with inquisitive fronds reaching and curling around the intimate anecdotes of others.
It will be no surprise that I wholeheartedly recommend this book as well. You can’t go wrong with both books for yourself or a gift for someone special, or both. They fall into my “twofer” category, one for me and one for someone who I know will enjoy it as much as me. :))
Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Happy Gardening!
Jeanne xx
