Learning, from Near and Far

We can learn so much here at home; we can learn so much from those in other countries.

A family member took a job overseas. Most years at the holidays, I shipped her gifts early… treats from home. But last year, the squares on the calendar got ahead of me. I was late. Shopping went from in-person and stateside to online and in her adopted postal code. 

An overseas florist offered fastest delivery. And what luck! Available gift options were striking and unlike anything I had seen. Many combined found objects, cut blooms, and plants. I chose a particularly nice arrangement that highlighted woodland items, one or two dramatic flowers, and living greenery in the form of a small succulent. It was beautiful.

This year, I wanted to re-create this arrangement for my own home. I built everything atop a small piece of flagstone. The woodland items, for me, included hemlock and holly, cut small. I could have placed these in florists’ water tubes, but I knew they would not dry out too quickly indoors. For my cut flowers, I used two amaryllis blooms that had weighed down the tall stem on which they had grown. I cut them very close to the base of the flowers and placed them in a tiny cup of water, nestled into the evergreen. I added a dried allium head that I had kept since summer. Now in straw-like form, it looked like a starburst. And then came the long-lasting greenery, the unusual living focal point. For this I chose Senecio rowleyanus.

Senecio rowleyanus is more commonly known as the String of Pearls plant. Its foliage is small spheres that mimic pearls. These ‘pearls’ dot thin and pliable stems that trail along gracefully. The spheres taper at the end of each stem of Senecio rowleyanus, with the graduated sizes reminding me even more of pearls or beads on a necklace. Senecio rowleyanus was impressive enough to hold its own near the two super-sized blooms of rich red amaryllis. It takes a special plant to compete with such blooms, and Senecio rowleyanus was up to the task.

If I were crafting the same arrangement for delivery to a friend’s home, I would wire items together and use florists’ tubes to keep the branches and blooms hydrated. I would ensure that Senecio rowleyanus would be cozy by placing the whole arrangement in a box and covering it gently with tissue paper to hold in warmth during the drive to the recipient’s house. Once at its destination and unwrapped, Senecio rowleyanus would continue to need warmth (comfortable room temperature) and bright indirect light, plus a little tepid misting from time to time.

Because my arrangement would stay home, it could be more loosely crafted. I used what I had and what I found prettiest at the time—for example, Senecio rowleyanus, a succulent in the daisy family, was a new favorite of mine, so I put it to use. Dried allium could have been replaced with a pinecone or three. If I had not had amaryllis blooms, a tightly closed rose would have been beautiful, opening gradually as the days passed. If I had not encountered a broken piece of flagstone near my garden, the arrangement would have looked just as good atop a wooden shingle. The options... endless.

This year, I sent purchased gifts on time. But last year’s experience opened my eyes to a new way of creating arrangements, using found woodland items and living green plants like Senecio rowleyanus, or String of Pearls, to say “Happy Holidays”.