Country garden bouquets

Sunset, Spring-Summer, 1998 by Kathleen N. Brenzel

"We all need color in our lives, and it comes from nature," says Linda Arietta, pointing to the bouquets of homegrown flowers that fill her airy farmhouse kitchen in Watsonville, California. "I paint with flowers."

Indeed, Arietta's arrangements are as vividly rendered as still lifes on canvas. They're floral fireworks, color-matched to vases and dishes and even to the decor around them. On the buffet table against one wall, cobalt blue delphiniums fan out their blooms, perfectly complementing the painting on the wall behind them. On the patio table just outside the kitchen, an arrangement of blue larkspur, bright salmon pink godetias, and white lilies echoes the colors of watermelon slices that await us on a cobalt blue platter. On another table, asters in pink, rose, white, and lavender play off the Caribbean beach colors of the striped umbrella above them.

Arietta grows the flowers for these magical creations out back in her fields. Each season, her 10-acre ranch produces more than 50 kinds of flowers, which she and her staff arrange for such clients as Smith & Hawken, Crate & Barrel, and Neiman Marcus, as well as for her own shop - Country Essences Flowers in nearby Capitola Village.

The secrets to Arietta's joyful arrangements? "I like to grow things that growers don't touch," she says. "I order seed mixes. And I choose flowers for their exquisite colors and shapes."

Among her favorites for summer bouquets are amaranth, aster, dahlia, hydrangea, sunflower, and zinnia.

But Arietta's always looking for something new to try. "Flowers are my passion, my life," she says. "I love sharing that beauty with others."

Arietta's tips for growing flowers to cut

* Diversify your plantings. Grow lots of different kinds of flowers together to help control pests.

* Feed plants regularly. During the growing season, use diluted liquid fertilizer with each watering.

* Avoid wetting flowers and foliage when you water the plants.

* Plant in succession. When something's finished, pull it out, prep the soil, and then replant with something else.

* Amend the soil with compost regularly between plantings. Arietta uses mushroom compost from nearby farms.

... and for arranging them

* Let your decor inspire your flower choices. Walls, furniture, a great painting, or objects on the table can suggest bouquet colors.

* Prepare delicate flowers before arranging them. Delphiniums and sweet peas last longer if you soak the stems in floral preservative and water in a cool place overnight.

* Add fillers to give a bouquet an "airy, fieldsy, country look." Six favorites: corn cockle (Agro-stemma), fern asparagus (A. setaceus), ivy, Queen Anne's lace, saponaria (S. ocymoides), and statice (Limonium bellidifolium).

* Use small-leafed foliage, such as grasses, myrtle, and salal, as accents.

* Add fragrance. Tuck snippets of scented geranium leaves, especially rose-scented kinds, among the flowers.

* Fill aluminum buckets with bunches of sweet peas and cluster them under a blooming apple tree for a great springtime show.

* Freshen bouquets daily. Flowers dry out more quickly in florist's foam than in water-filled vases. Keep the foam moist. If possible, also remove the flowers from the foam daily, clip about an inch off their stems, and return them to the foam.

* Revive wilted flowers by cutting their stems in warm water.

* Don't waste anything. If petals drop from the bouquet, gather them up to make potpourri.