Thursday, May 29, 2014

mille fleurs


yesterday i got to return to pharsalia, a beautiful 200 year old plantation at the edge of virginia's blue ridge mountains. we were there a few weeks ago for the folk life festival.  this time, it was all about the flowers.


foxie morgan operates a flower farm on her property and opened her home and farm for a lovely flower workshop.


we met in the house for a brief introduction to flower cutting and then were set loose, buckets of water and clippers in hand, to gather to our hearts' content from pharsalia's cutting gardens.









once our buckets were overflowing with blooms and foliage, we got to work designing in one of the workhouses on the property.



i was lucky to share my table with three lovely young women who just happened to be floral designers.  they worked intuitively, as artists, rather than by an "arranging" formula.

my kind of people.


we took a break for lunch in the main house.  the menu was simple and spectacular:  avocado and orange salad with almonds and flowers; brie, strawberries and basil on croissant; cucumber gazpacho and icy lemonade.



after lunch we returned to our work space.  i took an alternate route to breathe in just a little more of the beauty of pharsalia.


here are my tablemates' gorgeous creations (they totally indulged my incessant need to photograph all the beauty):




here is the lovely lady i was working on:


we were all very pleased with our results.


i think pharsalia is the most beautiful place on earth.  home and sanctuary to happy and peaceful people.