Every once in a great while there comes a book that brushes the cobwebs off design history and lets you see rooms in a fresh light. Such a book is “Flora Domestica: A History of British Flower Arranging, 1500-1930” (Harry N. Abrams Publishers, $49.50) by Mary Rose Blacker, longtime researcher with Britain’s National Trust.
Lest you flee at the mere mention of the words “flower arranging,” stop for a minute and try to visualize any room in a decorating magazine without a picture of a tumble of roses or an arc of lilies. Flowers are as important to a room as furniture and are just as stylish. Where would the 1970s be without the profusion of Boston ferns? Where would the Victorian interior be without a forest of palm trees?
Blacker even includes an 1895 photograph where trees grow through holes cut in a banquet table. But unlike furniture, foliage is ephemeral and almost impossible to research. Unless, of course, you are Mary Rose Blacker.
Blacker has gone through period art and highlighted what most of us fail to notice: the bouquet on the table beside the incredibly garbed queen, the arrangement set way in the background of an Elizabethan wedding feast. She shares the images she has uncovered, along with photographs of National Trust houses. She marches through the history of gardening, design and flower arranging, pausing to re-create period bouquets. She dispenses illumination at every turn.
In the early 17th Century, it was cheaper to have paintings of tulips than actual flowers. And for much of history, flowers rarely graced the dinner table. But come dessert (a word derived from the French desservir, “to clear the table”), plates and platters were removed and a banquet was set with sweets, flowers and pyramids of fruit.
In the early 19th Century, as windows became longer and French doors linked house and garden, plants began to come inside. By plants, Blacker doesn’t mean just an African violet or two. Shrubs were popular, including azalea and rhododendron, the latter sometimes 5 feet tall.
For the middle class, who did not have gardeners or extensive conservatories, Walter Nicol recommended in “Villa Garden Directory” that choice plants be kept outdoors “plunged into the earth . . . to be carried into the house in succession as they come into flower.”
Ideas from the past
Some ideas from the past on how to display flowers, from “Flora Domestica”:
– When furniture was positioned at the perimeter of rooms and moved about for social events, there were few places left to display flowers. Some solutions: tiny shelves projecting out from window and door moldings.
– Victorians were adept at mixing furniture and flowers. Some entrance hall stands were designed to hold lamps, goldfish bowls and bouquets. One custom worth reviving is the tall flower stand. It let flowers be positioned in a hall or living room, free of the usual side table.
– Historically, flowers were placed on pier tables between windows with mirrors hung above to reflect their beauty and create the illusion of an extra window.
