Cooperative Living October 2015 - 36

GARDEN MUSE by Paula Steers Brown, Contributing Columnist
Making the Rounds
IMAGES: MARIAFLAYA/ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK, BELANDER/ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK & VAL_IVA/ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK,
T
opiaries have pleased the
eye for centuries, imposing
symmetry and giving weight
and a reassuring impression of order to
a setting.
These living geometric forms lend a
stately air when plants or flowers in
containers rise from their pots to stand
sentinel and flank entries or provide
other focal points in the home. You
need not be as proficient a pruner as
Edward Scissorhands to enjoy poodlestyle
pompom effects.
Make them and fake them by fashioning
cut flowers into tightly packed
globes atop their natural stems or an
interesting support. Or create floral
domes arising from bowls or stemmed
glassware to pack a punch of color
and texture for special events.
An ideal candidate for a floral
globe is the humble carnation. Longlasting
carnations are inexpensive and
readily available, which may account
for their somewhat commonplace status.
But their sweet scent and their
ample frilly petals are irresistible in a
packed display. Since they are not
costly, buy plenty and bunch them
together tightly, handling gently so as
not to behead any of the beauties.
Remove all the leaves from the
stems. Start with the fullest flower for
the center and encircle it with four
more blooms. Holding the bouquet in
one hand, keep adding flowers all
around the edges, forming a nice
34
round ball. If you want the topiary look,
retain the long stems and bind about two
dozen carnations tightly together just
under the flower heads with a twist tie.
Lop off the stems straight across
and firmly insert in a pot filled with
soaked Oasis floral foam. Cover any
exposed Oasis with moss and tie a
wired bow of nice-quality ribbon at
the base of the floral ball, allowing
the ends to cascade gently down the
trunk of stems. Of course, roses look
great bunched, as do even widepetaled
flowers like Gerbera daisies
or bright sunflowers.
Interactive topiaries are great fun
at parties. For a baby shower, I
painted a flowerpot pink and lettered
across it: " Little girls are sugar and
spice and everything nice. " Within
the pink puffball of carnations atop
the pot, I inserted real sugar cubes
and cinnamon sticks tied onto toothpicks
with thin satin ribbon
bows so that the sugar and spice
actually could be used to sweeten
coffee and tea.
Such arrangements inspire all
types of possibilities for using fun
removable treats in topiary centerpieces,
especially at children's parties
or holiday meals. Flowers can
also be glued solidly over a
Styrofoam globe mounted on an
interesting branch for a faux topiary
chocked full of candies on picks.
Fresh or dried hydrangea, for example,
pressed in small bunches to
cover the surface makes a great
background to showcase pink bubblegum
mounted on toothpicks.
Cooperative Living/October 2015

Cooperative Living October 2015

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