Gallery: It’s Time to Think About Flowers Like We Do About Produce
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Magnolias are not commonly used in indoor floral decor, but they're one of Louesa Roebuck's trademark flowers. "When you cut them as a bud they will open up beautifully inside, but if you bring in branches wth existing blooms they will only last a couple of days," Roebuck writes. "But then, in the case of the grandiflora, they turn a leathery burnished color that I love."
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Roebuck likes gleaning and foraging because it forces her to think on her feet. "I would be so bored if I just went to the flower mart, where you go and get what's on your list and it's all the same size and formula," she says.
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Part of working locally means working with decay and drying flora. "I take them down when they gather too much dust or when they are washed out and faded," Roebuck writes.
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Roebuck and Lonsdale create several installations at SHED in Healdsburg using the late summer bounty from owners' Doug and Cindy's HomeFarm. Roebuck adores the verbascum they found. "Cindy had let these grow tall and leggy, allowing them to become curvy creatures," she says.
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"Some people see the world in grids, lines, straight streets, and graphs. Some people see the world in circles, usually radiating out from and around a nexus, and sometimes that nexus can be a moving target," Roebuck writes from SHED in Healdsburg.
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Fennel is another of Roebuck's favorite plants. "You can break it down to any size or dimensions and it behaves," she writes from Frog's Leap winery. "It offers solid architecture and structure by itself or as a form to add most any flora too."
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In March, Roebuck and Lonsdale visit David Hoffman's sustainable farm in Lagunitas, California that the county has been trying to shut down for years. Here, Roebuck arranges a spray of David Austin and Lady Banks in one of Hoffman's vessels.
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"Building even a tiny collection of vessels for your home can add so much beauty and individuality to your floral touches," Roebuck says. When she's creating a dinner arrangement Roebuck starts by filling all of the vessels with water. "I like to add elements and take away. I can't do that if I am bringing in one piece at a time like an assembly line."
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At her home in Stinson Beach, Roebuck works with roses from the garden of Sam Greenwood, a genius grower, tree grafter, and one of Alice Waters's right-hand women.
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"So much of this work is simply listening to what the plant is so obviously telling us, rather than imposing or interfering," Roebuck writes from Rintaro restaurant in San Francisco.
