Being able to grow flowers year-round gives me opportunity to create exuberant bouquets every day. Neighbors are often surprised with long-lasting blossoms fresh from my cutting garden, as are clients and friends. Picking lots of flowers for use indoors brings beauty and eliminates that tedious garden task - deadheading. I've just fallen in love with Caladium foliage. Click here to see arrangements using Caladiums. All the flowers on this page are from my garden. Click here to see the cutting garden. 
 

Freesias are among my favorite flowers. This bouquet features freesias, waxflower, statice, and breath of heaven. 

The first flowers of spring are tiny - this bouquet measures 5" wide and high. It includes acacia, nemesia, diosma (breath of heaven), spirea, Mexican sage, geranium encanum, lavender, and geranium foliage.

This bouquet was made under extreme pressure - during a March photoshoot for Better Homes & Gardens, the photographer asked me, on the spot, to pick some flowers from the cutting garden and make a bouquet. I had always dreamed of having one of my arrangements featured in a magazine, but thought I'd get some time to really work on a design. This bouquet appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Gardens, Decks and Landscapes.

No matter when Easter falls in the Spring, the flowers around that time are glorious. Here's a bouquet of alstromeria, bluebells (scilla), ranunculus and ivy.

One day in early February, the editor of Southern California Home and Outdoor Living called saying she'd read an article stating that having flowers in the bedroom makes you wake up refreshed. She needed photos and a story that afternoon. So I headed to the cutting garden....luckily I found alstromeria, paperwhites, and a 'New Day' rose.

For an outdoor dinner party in May, I assembled 'Just Joey' and 'Polka' roses, breadseed poppies, alstromeria and foliage from peppermint geraniums, using a chicken feeder as a vase. 

Cooler Fall temperatures bring a new flush of growth on the roses and gerberas; chrysanthemums are abundant. This bouquet uses 'Marilyn Monroe' and 'Sheila's Perfume' roses.