Dried flowers have amassed with ease, taking over vases, empty corners and shelves as if alive. Most recently it’s been the generosity of my husband and a run of gift-giving occasions that has bought extravagantly beautiful arrangements to our door, and they’ve found a spot among herbaceous border seedheads cycled home after pruning, grasses wheaten brown and nodding, and surplus wedding foliage.
In the endless effort to find rightful homes for the too-much-stuff amassed in our flat, I settled on surrounding myself with flowers at my desk, collecting all materials onto one(ish) wall. Wreaths now hang above the built-in wardrobe, no more to be knocked in passing or flattened by closing doors.
A wire basket, gifted by my mother during their house move and too beautiful to lose, had previously sat hidden in a cupboard, full of the gardening odds that in the future I may need. Now up on the wall, perched high above the bookshelves it’s my favourite thing in the room, embracing the cut flowers from across the flat.
No more artlessly stuffed vases with stems scattering seeds and petals with every move, or dusty bouquets taking up coffee tables. It’s a little library of cut flowers I can gaze at from my desk, before the next wreath takes its place above the wardrobe.
a year in the garden 