Flowers and styling for festive celebrations or simple occasions, as guests draw their chairs close to share the long table for storied evenings and linger.
STORIES AND NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Fall | Five days of breakfast—each with perfect coffee and a bit of milk, creamy yogurt with fruit (pears one day), a spot of honey, a delightful cake—sweet, but not too, marmalade, toasted bread and an egg, if you like. I found myself at a long table with guests unfamiliar until the first words were spoken.
Valdirose is a most romantic little inn, tended to by lovely hosts, with flowers unexpected and beautiful linens in every room—each with their windows that open to valleys below.
VALDIROSE AND LASTRA A SIGNA, ITALY
Late Summer | A walk through the dreamy flower farm at Park Winters, the creamy Wollerton Old Halls caught my eye as they languished in the evening sun. Alongside sweet peas and orlayas, a ruby-red smoke bush and pale, romantic rose unknown—the finished centerpiece perfectly graced the table.
ROMANTIC WOLLERTONS
Winters, Summer | Styling festive celebrations or simple occasions, you’re invited to draw your chairs close and share the long table. Silver and linens, glassware and plates, bring their own stories to the scape. Flowers from gardens and growers nearby, string lights to soften the evening, giving guests that time to linger.
TABLES DRESSED
Summer | Daily walks lead me down familiar paths. Steps repeated time and time again. And yet, I find new views, new blossoms, a different light. By the evening’s softer end, the morning enters slowly again. An unexpected mist lingers. A songbird unfamiliar.
ALONG THE WAY
Late Summer | It was to be an elegant and informal wedding. The bride in ivory, the groom in denim, the flowers to compliment the home’s quiet and minimal interior. She loved peonies. And flora from the woodland and meadows nearby. “A feminine palette, please—light and lacy”. I added a touch of ruby red and playful mustard billy balls. Her bouquet was wrapped in a trailing soft blue ribbon to compliment the groom’s wear.
Table settings and centerpieces were surrounded by small containers of white azaleas and sword ferns. The elegant and informal were about to begin as I slipped away—so very pleased.
YES, I DO FLOWERS!
Winters, Late Summer | dreamfarm.kitchen began as an ideal between two creatives—bringing the harvest of the surrounding fields and markets to tables set under eaves or in meadows. Branded as a heartfelt invitation to experience exquisite meals in unexpected settings, dreamfarm became a community of like-minded farmers, makers, chefs and neighbors invited to share the long table. The evenings ended with a community enlightened and engaged.
As stylist, I chose a setting alongside an orange orchard, the grass still warm from the day’s heat, the wide oak branches a shelter. A table for ten. Hay bales for extra seating, two long planks to dress, gold-rimmed glassware with linens left raw—the contrast of playfully formal and found. Every linen presented as perfectly folded with silverware brightly polished, plates and glassware elegant—sourced from markets, many. Additional photography by the talented Amber McHugh. A dinner deck to view: dreamfarm.kitchen
A TABLE FOR TEN
Winters, Fall | It began with an impromptu invitation for tea on a flower farm. I stepped into a romantic, rustic barn filled with bouquets and garlands from the fields nearby—some fresh, most dried, fragrant and muted in their tones. I was in heaven.
The flowers on The Farm at Park Winters are grown in a loving partnership with the land and her muse, the seasons of the year. We began our walk through the long rows of autumn flowers. A bouquet of frilly bachelor buttons, dark ruby scabiosa, chocolate lace and the playful echinacea gathered. Along with lemon verbena for that dash of spice, all were carefully wrapped and brought to my studio where they now grace my work table—every glance bringing me back to Rafael’s fields.
THE FARM AT PARK WINTERS
Oakland, Fall | A stop at the lovely @wisteriarockridge—a sidewalk garden of the most beautiful blooms. I left with an arm full of paper-wrapped flowers, ready to be arranged in lively conversation with each other…
The first to arrive and ask to be noticed was the elegant echinacea pod—minimally adorned (petals left behind), with spikes of orange atop an undercoat of dark chestnut brown. The company of romantic and lyrical garden roses soon followed. Then, a stem or two of butterfly ranunculi—light and airy, with a slight sparkle to their tissue-like petals. (A Latin name: rana and unculus, meaning ‘frog' and ‘little’, as the flowers grow on streams and bloom in springtime just as the frogs appear.)
All appeared festively content amongst the burgundy smokebush and another guest, oh dear, whose name just slipped my memory.
SUCH FESTIVITIES!
Summer | It actually began with the hydrangeas. I was drawn to their red tinged, blue green leaves, some with remnants of a field insect’s nibbles (which immediately brought fond memories of farms and the land). My thoughts were to complement the green with soft, pale, feminine blooms.
And then I saw the blood red dahlias—like heavy velvet drapes with the elegance of another era. Within moments came the palest of green roses and dusty millers. I needed one more to play with the smaller leafed hydrangeas. Guided by Mina {of the beautiful Arjan studio} the astrantia was chosen.
Just then a story unfolded—my two protagonists came to life. The ‘melancholy gentleman’ and ‘fated destiny’ dahlia—arranged in a symmetrical crown, the curly willow supporting a tangled tale of floral romance.
THE MELANCHOLY GENTLEMAN
Oakland, Winter | Spring is introducing itself in mid February—the robin’s song beginning its barely-dawn appearance.
Here, linen informs the dinner party’s palette—the snowy lisianthus and rose, the blue hyacinth and viburnum berries, and a traveler—a vibrant spidery mum. Locally grown a preference, but at times a guest appearance accepted. Introduced to foraged greens, albeit not exactly from the fields as intended, nevertheless all got along well. The three roses formed a little heart—thus the journal’s title.
It’s less in prose and more a visual narrative this time—from the work space sandbox that doubles as a kitchen table to the finished arrangement that accompanied the dinner’s guests.
A SOLILOQUY
Winters, Very Late Summer | In October, the wildflowers no longer grace our summer landscapes. Although tolerated and often overlooked, the flora along the margins of nearby roads informed otherwise. I found the clinging vinegar weed—overly pungent but with delicate lavender blooms—slowly fading wild rose hips, sage-colored deer weed, spiked deer grass and barely blushing toyon berries, everywhere.
So began my task—a table setting with native flora to grace its placement under a wide-limbed California oak. Twenty-four guests settled into neighborly conversation while stringed lights glowed as the landscape beyond faded to an evening’s blue. A benefit for an Audubon ranch, the long table brought neighbors, both present and future, together.
THE AUDUBON RANCH
Oakland, Summer | Dahlias will engage with other flowers chosen—conversing and complementing with a style that’s both fieldlike and rather formal at the same time. Perhaps it’s their reverence to the royal gardens and imperial science academies past—having been discovered in the pine and oak woodlands of their native Mexico—they were quite the find for the European botanists and naturalists.
Sweetly, the dahlia plant is sometimes referred to as the valley flower (from the Swedish ‘dal’ or ‘valley’). Festive and romantic, dahlias attract their wandering pollinators with their vibrant petals—single, doubled and pinwheeled in all colors but the elusive blue.
A DAHLIA’S CONVERSATION
My Own Neighborhood, Late Summer | In between this and that, I challenge myself with two market selections and the remainder found along the way. Walking paths (why are those elusive Queen Anne’s lace always on the unreachable side of the fence) with generous blackberries and an unplanned lily of the Nile.
FORAGED AND FOUND
Anderson Valley, Spring | The gentle Navarro River makes its way slowly towards the Pacific—through the wild rhododendrons and companion willows clinging to its banks. Old logging roads still traveled, past groves of redwood, pine and fir. In one of the river’s bend sits Camp Navarro, our host to a weekend for worn city guests. A balconied lodge, long tables outside bunks and cabins with names as ‘Petaluma’. Hammocks and retired canoes. Mid-day foraging walks led by the poets Hal of Juniper Ridge and Patrick of SF Foragers. Our hosts, Hipcamp and Don of Camp Navarro, gave us this weekend of companionship and play.
And then came the fare prepared by Olson Farms and Native Juice Co. to laden the tables. Wildcrafted spirits by ‘simplifier, life slayer and happy human’ Lauren Devine, arranged meadow flowers by Seth Chapin—all could not have been more idyllic. Guests who came as strangers by evening’s end celebrated each other’s stories of home and journey. We all welcomed the air of distance from the familiar. By late evening’s end that heart of mine was simply perfectly filled.
CAMP NAVARRO
Summer | Before I began to design materials for Marin Organic, I volunteered my time as a gleaner. Each week, a farmer would offer us rows of produce that remained on the land after harvest. Within moments, farmland began to replace my screen and I reveled in finding hidden tomatoes, delicate broccoli, demur lettuces. Bags and boxes were gathered and subsequently delivered to the local food bank, a nearby senior center, a school lunch program.
I began my appreciation for what was known as an organization dedicated to farmers in West Marin. Since 2001, Marin Organic had been a resource for farmers and ranchers who believed in creating meaningful standards for organic agriculture—sharing a vision where agriculture would be environmentally and economically sustainable.
We designed invitations, programs, true farm to table dinners both on the land and the city, gatherings and events, field studies for children, farming 101 talks—all so beautifully informed by the hours I first spent harvesting the produce so generously left behind for us to help promote and honor—the land.