Flower-Brained

I smell something. It may simply be that months of mucous filled pathways are finally opening up (thanks to Seattle’s 3 days of downright fine weather). Or it may be that flowers just smell pretty dang good this time of year. Better than other times.

And that got me thinking… I know just how important smell is for giving latent memories a kick back into the here and now. So why then, as a floral designer, am I not taking total advantage of the ultimate long-term marketing plan?! Of course, I hope that in fifteen years some frazzled mom will be driving her tween to a Beiber-of-the-day concert, and get a whiff of a floral scent that reminds her of her wedding day. This then leads to a happy mom remembering how much she loves her husband, and how much she loves her twerp with the weird hair in the back seat. Happy lady leads to the kid getting an extra 20 bucks which leads to happy kid and leads to hubby getting an extra smooch which leads to happy hubby and so on and so on. The world is a better place because I had some smelly strategy. AND she remembers how gorgeous and yummy smelling her flowers were which reminds her to check out what Lola Event Floral & Design is up to these days….. Probably they’ll have their own TV show by then, or running creative process workshops in the south of France… or Tanzania.

Maybe not that far. But still, our sense of smell is really pretty amazing and gets studied all the time. Did you know that smell is the first sense to mature, and the emotional/memory to smell connection is stronger when we are younger and sticks around the longest? So when you are 109, a Pieris bush might still dredge up memories of your first kiss in elementary school underneath a pieris shrub. AND unlike sight and touch, which have to be processed in order for our brains to understand, our smelling equipment has a direct connection to our brain. In fact, it turns out that the junk that handles smell hangs out inside of the junk that makes emotions and stores emotional memories inside our noggins. Check out this New York Times post for more: “The Nose, An Emotional Time Machine” by Natalie Angier.

Anywho, here are some pics of my favorite smelly, memory making flowers and the lovely arrangements that got to host them.

Cherry blossoms! The smell literally can smell up a whole room. This arrangement was for my sister’s wedding on our family’s farm. Check it out if you haven’t seen it. It includes fringe tulips, agonis, cherry blossoms (or are they pear?), and artichoke foliage.

Peonies! So delicate, so expensive, so quick to bite it, but so worth it. This gorgeous spring bouquet is what I would choose if I were getting married in the spring. It’s one of those arrangements you make and then stand back and say out loud… “Emily, you have done good in the world.”   Maybe not out loud. Other flowers include ranunculus, quicksand roses, white majolica roses, hellebores, pieris, and anemone.

I’m in love.

Rosemary! One of my all time faves. It really goes with anything you put in a vase, or anything you put in your mouth. Unless you are putting the vase in your mouth in which case you should worry about other things besides what else to put in there.

It wasn’t until I was messing with this photo that I realized that a slugster had visited my hellebore. Oh well. local and organic, right?

Pieris! Definitely one of my memory triggers. I love this smell. Actually, so much that last year I already wrote about it in the Cutting Garden Post. Click here for more on that.

Yay for spring!

Tags: artichoke leaves, bouquet, centerpiece, cherry blossoms, flowering branches, flowering quince, fringe tulips, hellebore, magenta flowers, pear blossoms, peony, pieris, pink, purple flowers, quick sand rose, ranunculus, spring wedding, tulip arrangement, wedding, white rose