LIVING WORKS OF ART

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

I love using wildflowers in naturalistic floral arrangements and grow as many as possible in my own garden so that I am free to pick as desired. This arrangement was inspired by a walk down my local country lanes in May where the hedgerows are lined with billowing clouds of cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, exuding a light and airy feel. I’ve combined this iconic umbellifer with several Adiantum ferns and a trio of blues from the borage family to add some sparkle to the mix.

How to achieve the look

This handsome wooden crate houses ten chunky soda bottles, but for this display I replaced seven of them with maidenhair ferns in 1L pots and three with cut flowers in glass vases, anchoring the arrangement with a row of Victorian clay ink pots.

A selection of tall, cow parsley stems adds height, and I picked those with the darkest purple stems to match the rose-flushed buds of the . These provide a link to the almost-black stems of the maidenhair fern, whose fresh virescent tones add a sense of depth to the display.