Just Give It a Go!

I think about making a flower arrangement the same way I consider a room, creating a composition that will equal the sum of its parts. Let me explain: color, texture, scale, and location of an arrangement are as important as doing a floor plan in decoration. It is essential to take all elements into account. Consider the container: What will you choose? Where will it go? Answering these simple questions will prevent you from making something that may need a haircut, an overall scale-down, or lightening up. 

Flowers can create all sorts of moods in a home—festive primary-colored zinnias in a basket, seductively fragrant garden roses, one statuesque Casa Blanca lily, a sweet nosegay of freshly picked daffodils, or a landscape of miniatures. Each in its own way says something different. The smallest gestures suggest you care. A single blossom in a simple vase or a vase with some sentimental attachment can add meaning to your life or, at the minimum, a splash of beauty in your room.

If you are worried that it is not your long suit, so to speak, well, guess what? It never will be if you don’t give it a try. The late grand dame of English interior decoration, Jean Monro, used to always say to me, “You’ve just got to ‘give it a go.’” Jean’s decorating shop on Montpelier Street in London was one of my favorite haunts, and I considered her a mentor as I met her right after I started my business. I could always count on finding delicious porcelains of all types, including vases, in her shop. I still have some of those vases, and I think of her indomitable spirit every time I pick one up. I also like to think of Baroness Geoffrey de Waldner, and her petite arrangements—landscapes on a side table or console—which were a permanent reminder of perfection in simplicity. Anyone can do what the Baroness did. You just have to “give it a go.” If you are reading this and thinking that you do not have a cache of vases to start experimenting with, look again. Silver serving pieces that are infrequently used, baskets (my personal addiction), bowls, pitchers, old perfume bottles, small tin buckets, any sort of crystal—any and all of these will do. Your selection should take into account what room it is going in. Be open-minded about flowers and their containers, and you might surprise yourself. I would much rather see someone do something spontaneous and unexpected. The confidence to do that comes with practice, and along the way you develop your own personal style. 

Washington hostess and author Evangeline Bruce was known for putting broccoli flowerettes in her silver biscuit tins, David Hicks liked bunches of watercress in glass vases, and Pauline de Rothschild took ordinary grasses to a whole new level when laying out her famous tablescapes. I am always tearing pages from magazines and photocopying pages from books of arrangements that I like. At the same time I photograph my own—a bedside arrangement I did for a friend on her last visit, the centerpiece at each dinner party, the arrangements on the mantels at Christmas. It may sound obsessive to some, but for me it works.

Remember, you just have to “give it a go.”

Interior designer and author Charlotte Moss, and textile designer Lisa Fine will speak on “Interiors, Gardens, Celebrations” at The Carnegie Museum of Art on Friday, April 17. For tickets: cmoa.org.

Text is excerpted with the author’s permission from Charlotte Moss’s Garden Inspirations (Rizzoli, 2015)

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