New Flyer for the Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers tour, which features tours of 6 different greenhouses. Kitayama Brothers open house includes a design competition for pros & students, a farmer's market, tours and wine tasting. See the KB site for maps and more information.

AIFD AIR in CCSF Currents

The City College of San Francisco newsletter, Currents, did a nice write up on the AIFD Artist in Residence event. Thanks to everyone! It was a fun and interesting event.

Kitayama Open House and Competition

On June 16th, the 3rd annual Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open House will be held in Watsonville. Kitayama Brothers open house will feature greenhouse tours, a farmer's market, information about Santa Cruz State Parks (the open house is a benefit for them), wine tasting, and the Kitayama Cup floral design competition.

This year's competition includes a "young professionals" category, with cash prizes and all kinds of fun. It's the weekend of my birthday, so I'm looking forward to celebrating in sunny Watsonville with lots of interesting people.

Info about the event (includes contest guidelines) | Jenny Tabarracci's blog

Breathing Flower at SF Civic Center

Choi Jeong Hwa's Breathing Flower at the Civic Center
Plaza across from the Asian Art Museum. Photo by Kim Munson.

Was headed to the SF Public Library yesterday, and was blown away by Choi Jeong Hwa's 24 foot sculpture Breathing Flower, which is on display in the Civic Center Plaza across from the Asian Art Museum as part of the Phantoms of Asia exhibition. Read more about it at SFGate.

AIFD AIR Event at CCSF

 

If you can't see this slideshow, click here to see it on Flickr 

The photos in the slideshow above are from the American Institute of Floral Designers Artist in Residence Program demo April 12th at CCSF. The featured designers were Hiromi Nomura AIFD, Kaori Imaizumi AIFD, Katherine Zhang AIFD, Susan Ishkanian AIFD, Yoko I. Klingbiel AIFD and Emil Yanos AIFD. Floral materials were donated by Kitayama Brothers.

All the designers were given the same urn and general selection of materials. It was really interesting to see how differently the designers put these together. All the designers did a second, more personal arrangement. Most of them have participated in floral design competitions, and in Bouquets to Art, so it was interesting to hear them talk about inspiration, tips and tricks, and how they got started.  Thanks to Jenny Tabarracci, the CCSF floral department and the SAIFD Menzie Chapter for organizing this great event.

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.