Florets - Floral Quote - # 166 - by Ngoc Minh Ngo

'Florets - Floral Quote' is a series of blog posts where I feature quotes by authors - mostly well known - but you will also find some obscure ones.

All the authors have written one or several books about flowers, green plants, gardening, interior styling or interior design. Many are experts in their field but what is the most important is that they are all passionate about flowers and plants.

I love books and in my ever growing library I look for quotes that I hope will be both inspiring and be useful while arranging flowers or green plants in your home.

"The world is full of beauty, and few things are more beautiful than flowers. For millennia, flowers has been weaving their way into the fabric of our lives, claiming a central place in the human experience."

"Like all civilizations before us - from ancient Chinese and Egyptians to the Persians, Greeks, and Romans - we gather, grow, observe, admire, and record flowers for a myriad reasons.We celebrate them in songs and poems. We love and mourne with flowers in hand. We borrow their loveliness to embellish our home, adorn our dresses, and grace our table." 

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~ 

[Ngoc Minh Ngo: New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of two books Bringing Nature Home (2012) and In Bloom (2016).]

[Quote from: In Bloom by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Book cover photography: Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Holly foliage.]

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Florets - Floral Quote - # 128 - Ngoc Minh Ngo

"From palace to cottage, the chrysanthemum is a flower of great antiquity. It is to autumn what the rose is to summer. Many cultivars bear flowers the colors of autumn; bronzy orange, mauve, russet, and copper. in the long years of its existence, there have been a multitude of changes to its character and form, but the chrysanthemum remains a jewel in the autumn garden." 

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~ 

[Ngoc Minh Ngo: New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of two books Bringing Nature Home (2012) and In Bloom (2016).]

[Quote from: Bringing Nature Home by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Bronzy orange and russet Chrysanthemums.]

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Enjoy your flower arranging and have a fabulous and floral Sunday!

Thank you for visiting 'Of Spring and Summer - I will be back tomorrow with another Floral Media - this time it's something creative and very dramatic using ice and flowers! 

Remember to visit again tomorrow to have a look. See you tomorrow.

Ingrid 

~ xoxo ~

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson/Of Spring and Summer.]

P. S. Did you know that you can subscribe to receive a notification via email whenever I have a new blog post. Just fill in your email address at the top of my blog on the right and an email will come right into your inbox.

For more floral inspiration you can follow me on:

Pinterest:   https://www.pinterest.com/ofspringsummer/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ofspringandsummer/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ingrid.henningsson

A Bunch for the Weekend - # 88 - Autumn Coloured Chrysanthemums

Autumn is a season full of fabulous colours - a time when nature is very generous with what it has on offer. 

Why not use one flower - but plenty of stems - and make it look large and abundant. 

It's always a pleasure and lots of fun to buy a bunch of flowers for the weekend and this series of blog posts, called 'A Bunch for the Weekend, will show you how you can make quick and easy flower arrangements for your home. 

Buy the flowers where it's convenient and easy for you whether that is from a flower stall, farmers' market, the supermarket or a florist. 

Always try to buy seasonal flowers - they will be a lot cheaper.

Make sure you condition the flowers as soon as you get home. Remove any foliage that will end up below the waterline in the vase. Trim the ends of the stems at an angle and put in fresh water as soon as possible.

It's easy to be generous with Chrysanthemums as they are readily available at this time of year, cheap to buy - and they also last for ages!

I wanted to combine these burnt orange flowers with BLUE!

I scoured my house for blue props - and I picked a few of my husband's blue shirts, a Spanish plate with blue decorations and a small painting by my art school teacher Sargy Mann - a remarkable man and painter. 

I also found a French vintage fabric with wide blue stripes, some dark blue bowles from Sweden - and last but not least three just published books and they all had lots of blue on the covers.....

From the bottom of the pile: In Bloom by Ngoc Minh Ngo. In the middle: Flourish by Willow Crossley. On the top is In the mood for Colour by my fellow Swede Hans Blomquist.

All three are beautiful and very inspiring books and I will review them soon. 

As a contrast to all the blue and burnt orange - I also made up a little basket of gold, amber beads and coral tucked in with a piece of fabric in similar colours.

Enjoy your flower arranging and have a fabulous and floral weekend!

Thank you for visiting 'Of Spring and Summer' - I will be back on Sunday with another floral quote by someone passionate about flowers. 

Ingrid 

~ xoxo ~

[Styling, photography and text © Ingrid Henningsson/Of Spring and Summer.]

P. S. Did you know that you can subscribe to receive a notification via email whenever I have a new blog post. Just fill in your email address at the top of my blog on the right.

For more floral inspiration you can follow me on:

Pinterest:   https://www.pinterest.com/ofspringsummer/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ofspringandsummer/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ingrid.henningsson

Florets - Floral Quote - # 124 - by Ngoc Minh Ngo

"The world is full of beauty, and few things are more beautiful than flowers. For millennia, flowers have been weaving their way into the fabric of our lives, claiming a central place in the human experience. The first flowers appeared on Earth some 125 million years ago; nothing more than primitive versions of the water lily, unassuming and thriving on the edges of the Cretaceous lakes in the shadow of dinosaurs. These long lost pioneers made their way on land, eventually evolving into the infinity of complex and showy blossoms that fascinate and delight us today.We don't know when flowers first found their place in the place of men, but vases unearthed from Mesopotamia have been found decorated with "garlands," leaving little doubt that prehistoric man was already seduced by their beauty. Like all civilization before us - from the ancient Chinese and Egyptians to the Persians, Greek, and Romans - we gather, grow, observe, admire, and record flowers for myriad reasons. We celebrate them in songs and poems, We love and mourn with flowers in hand. We borrow their loveliness to embellish our homes, adorn our dresses, and grace our table.   

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~

[Ngoc Minh Ngo: New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of two books Bringing Nature Home (2012) and In Bloom (2016).]

[Quote from: In Bloom by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Pink spray Chrysanthemums.]

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Enjoy your flower arranging and have a fabulous and floral Sunday!

Thank you for visiting 'Of Spring and Summer - I will be back tomorrow with another Floral Media - this time its an interview with a well known stylist Sibella Court. Hope to see you then. 

Ingrid 

~ xoxo ~

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson/Of Spring and Summer.]

P. S. Did you know that you can subscribe to receive a notification via email whenever I have a new blog post. Just fill in your email address at the top of my blog on the right and an email will come right into your inbox.

For more floral inspiration you can follow me on:

Pinterest:   https://www.pinterest.com/ofspringsummer/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ofspringandsummer/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ingrid.henningsson

Florets - Floral Quote - # 76 - by Ngoc Minh Ngo

"The most profound legacy that Constance Spry left on the art of floral design is her emphasis on understanding the nature of plants and flower. A keen gardener, she had a deep appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of plants and flowers, which she sought to emphasize in her arrangements. In one of her last lectures, given in Australia in 1959, she said, "Let the flowers remind you of how they looked when growing." This is sensible advice. To show flowers to their best advantage, it makes perfect sense to appreciate their natural attributes, like the scalloped edges of a geranium leaf or the wavy bend of a poppy stem."

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~

[Ngoc Minh Ngo: New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of Bringing Nature Home.]

[Quote from: Bringing Nature Home by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Seven stems of double white Tanacetum - feverfew.]

[Vase: Vintage milk bottle.]

[Other props: Four zinc saucers, three little round stones and ribbons from Jane Means' ribbon collection.

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Have a Lovely Floral Sunday!

~ xoxo ~ 

Ingrid

Florets - Floral Quote - # 58 - by Ngoc Minh Ngo

"Grape hyacinths are tiny blue marvels that carpet  the woodlands in mid-spring. Fill a glass full of these beauties to enjoy their clusters of tiny, urn-shaped flowers in finely drawn hues of blue at home. Though they bloom in April their spicy-grape fragrance has been described as "the perfume of clove and sun-warmed Concord grapes of late September."

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~

[Ngoc Minh Ngo: New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of Bringing Nature Home.]

[Quote from: Bringing Nature Home by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Muscari or Grape Hyacinths.]

[Vase: Vintage 1920's light green glass.]

[Other props: Vintage French linen cloth, painting and beads.]

[Styling and photography © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Have an Amazing Floral Sunday!

Back next week!

xoxo Ingrid

Florets - Floral Quote by Ngoc Minh Ngo

"A room is never at its best without flowers. Flowers show that a home is cared for and truly lived in. While furniture can remain the same for years, flowers speak to the present moment. And yet they are a talisman, a reminder of the world beyond our doors, of growth and change, and the passage of time. They are fleeting pleasures."

~ Ngoc Minh Ngo ~

[Ngoc Minh Ngo - New York based photographer, landscape designer and author of Bringing Nature Home.] 

[Quote: from Bringing Nature Home by Ngoc Minh Ngo.]

[Flowers: Five chartreuse Chrysanthemums.]

[Foliage: Soft Ruscus ( Danae racemosa) and Steel Grass (Xanthorrhoea jonsonii)]

[Vase: Terracotta jar from Turkey.]

[Vintage: Three brown glass apothecary jars with stoppers from Sweden.]

[Other props: French linen sheet, green piece of cotton fabric and painted wooden board.]
[Styling and photography: © Ingrid Henningsson for Of Spring and Summer.]

Have a Lovely Floral Sunday!

xoxo Ingrid