Bouquets to Art 2010

Floral design by Pico Design,Pico Soriano with Ignacio Lopez,
based on Berkeley No. 3 (1954) by Richard Diebekorn or, as I like to
think of it, Still Life with Law Professor (Mark H. Greenberg).

The annual Bouquets to Art exhibition was at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park this past week. It was amazing as always with over 150 floral designers participating (see a full list here).

There were a few things that really stood out to me, in terms of design. People seemed to move away from monotone designs and there was an explosion of color in high contrast compositions. Designers embraced painted leaves and flowers, dyed flowers, recycled materials, colored wire, and all kinds of props and bling. I saw several designs that used Gypsophila (Baby's Breath) in innovative ways, a filler flower that is often shunned (seen as the "dozen roses and baby's breath" bouquet that was popular a couple of generations ago). There were several arrangements that used glass tubes extensively as a design element, and some that were done in terrarium styles. Flowers were grouped by texture and color, and there were also many designs composed of several arrangements working together. People made great use of succulents, and found some that looked pretty exotic.

Floral design by Waterlily Pond Floral Design based on Ultramarine
Stemmed Form with Orange from the Persian series,
by Dale Chihuly. The blue "shell" is made of painted palm leaves.

I wish I could remember the location of all of the designs in the photos shown in the slideshow embedded below. This is actually only a portion of the many outstanding designs in the exhibition. If you can't see the slideshow below, click here to see it on Flickr.

 

Russian Scientists Revive 32,000 Year Old Flower

Narrow-Leafed Campion.
Photo by Svetlana Yashina

Russian scientists Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences research center at Pushchino (near Moscow) have grown flowering plants called narrow-leafed campions from 32,000 year-old seeds found in the Siberian permafrost.  The seeds were found in ancient squirrel burrows containing more than 600,000 seeds and fruits, which were buried under 125 feet of sediment and frozen permanently at minus 7 degrees Celsius. The scientists were able to grow living plants from the seeds after placing the nucleus of the seeds in a nutrient bath.  The flowers most closely resemble the contemporary narrow-leafed campion (Silene Stenophylla).  I thought this was amazing! Here is more from the New York Times.