Fencing class led the herb guild which in turn led me to attend a flower arranging workshop on Tuesday night. The class was led by a retired florist, and she gave us a lot of basic tips for making our own garden-related tabletop arrangements a success.

First step: Start with greenery. Snip off any leaves that will be submerged since these will promote rot and wilt. And focus on something strong-stemmed first to build a firm foundation for the entire arrangement to rest upon.

Second step: Build up from there, starting with the heaviest item and working your way to more tender stems. Think about height to add interest --- our teacher did great things with sprays of lemongrass leaves, snipped so they didn't tower too far above the rest of the vase.

Third step: Have fun! We all brought vases and plants from our gardens, mixed and matched, and ended up with plenty of colorful and attention-grabbing displays to take home.

Whether I'll stop simply bringing in big masses of zinnias out of my garden and plopping them in a jar, however, remains to be seen.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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