Veranda

“Some of the most exquisite flowers are the most fleeting, but I find that no reason for disregarding them.”—CONSTANCE SPRY To British floral artist CONSTANCE SPRY, flower arrangements represented the ultimate creative expression. She found inspiration everywhere, from moody Dutch masters paintings—as in her 1951 rose and carnation arrangement above, based on a painting by 17th-century artist Willem van Aelst (inset)—to seemingly mundane plants like dried grasses and branches (right). Her ethos inspired this issue, merging art with the natural world and celebrating gifts of the garden as powerful forces in craft, innovation, and design. However fleeting their blossoms, the influence of flowers blooms eternal. PHOTOGRAPHS, GETTY IMAGES; PAINTING, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.…

WHAT COMES TO MIND IF I asked you to name a flower memory? It’s a question I’d never pondered until a couple of years ago, when Charlotte Moss (featured on page 114) was speaking about her book Flowers (Rizzoli, 2021) at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The designer took us on a stunning pictorial journey through her best flower memories, ranging from festivals in France and country gardens in England to historic garden tours in her native Virginia. Her passionate descriptions of each varietal’s color, fragrance, and environment were so vivid I felt as though I was experiencing her memories firsthand. That is until Moss’s stories summoned a rather Proustian flower memory of my own. The memory, from my time studying abroad in Provence, began with a steep climb past rows of…

I FIND USING BASKETS CAN MAKE the grandest rooms look homey and lived-in,” says acclaimed gardener, floral designer, and collector Cathy B. Graham. “Think how glorious Chatsworth House looks filled with baskets overflowing with flowers and plants.” Indeed they are the ultimate equalizer in decorating, appearing in Grade I English estates like Chatsworth and primitive cottages. In materials from willow to rattan, bulrush to pine, woven baskets are the hunter-gatherers of quotidian life up and down the social stratus, playing a vital role in nearly every civilization in history, predating even pottery. Yet deep in basketry’s DNA is a beauty of form and craftsmanship that has long captivated collectors and fueled the imaginations of makers—and the momentum appears no sign of abating. The latest generation of designs feels ripe for study…

ROSE CUMMING, 20TH-CENTURY CREATOR OF THE FAMED “UGLY ROOM” in her West 53rd Street brownstone, made clear that she preferred black tapers to electric lights. And yet with Liz Marsh’s new collection of decoupage lamps, the idiosyncratic decorator surely would have made an exception. The Age of the Marvelous, a period from the 16th to the 18th century when a passion for the natural world ran at a fever pitch, has long fueled Marsh’s work. But when textile designer Lauren Hudson of Wells Textiles spotted a synergy between the artist’s botanical motifs and Cumming’s dark decorating wit, Marsh went back into her archives and returned with bugs, snakes, and other critters to crawl into her traditional florals. Even the lampshade pairings (all from custom Rose Cumming fabric) are delightfully offeat,…

Like a grandfather oak stretching its canopy over the forest, tree-of-life patterns branch out in spectacular scale. The flowers and foliage in Braquenié’s Ashoka pattern (near right) are entirely hand-embroidered on a striking rose-colored linen ground. The effect? Paradise remastered. Mixing machine and hand stitching brings patterns inspired by older embroideries into the modern fray. Rose Cumming’s Fleur de Jardin (middle) comes from a dusty document in India, reborn with tactile flowering vines on a cotton ground as precious as the original hand-spun cloth. From gorgeous knotting to hand-stitching, sampler-like variety appears in single fabrics like Osborne & Little’s Puzzlewood (top center and bottom right). Its playful woodland pattern is first digitally printed on textured linen and then embellished with French knots, “pistil stitches” (long French knots), and chain stitches for an…