Late Summer Crops for Slow Flowers Bouquets

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

Thommy Conroy • 4121 Main

This dramatic, large-scale fifth-season piece comes from a Pittsburgh floral artist, who has embraced the fifth-season idea. With wedding couples he has long used the phrase "high summer" for the moment when fields overflow and local material is at its peak, which makes it an ideal time to source from farmers. Season's end ranks among his favorite stretches of the year.

For a restaurant outside Pittsburgh, he packed an oversized blue urn with pin oak foraged nearby, seed pods collected around the restaurant grounds and alstroemeria grown in the U.S. (Unless we're mistaken, the winged seeds of the much-disliked Tree of Heaven have finally found a good use!)

DAYTON, MARYLAND

Lisa Derx • Apricity Flowers

A grower at Apricity Flowers in Maryland describes the fifth season as summer rushing into fall, when cooler temperatures bring a shift in colors.

This arrangement honors summer's greens with lemon basil and limelight hydrangea while bringing in bright fall dahlia shades: 'Ginger Willo', 'Keith H' and 'Maarn'.

A cool August in her Zone 7 garden made hypericum a sweet addition, along with ageratum for a few touches of blue. Ammi looks fresh like summer while starting to take on deeper tones, a sign of the seasons blending.

CINCINNATI, OHIO

Nan Matteson • Queen City Flower Farm

A self-described urban micro flower farmer at Queen City Flower Farm in Cincinnati brings her locally grown flowers to farmers' markets around the city, a clear sign of her devotion to local blooms.

Playing around one day just for herself, she came up with this vignette of dahlias with chunky 'Porcelain Doll' and mini pumpkins.

For her the piece reads as autumn, just not in the expected way, and this is when dahlias look their best.

MEDIAPOLIS, IOWA

Jen Hinson • Clara's Garden

Clara's Garden, a flower farm and design studio in southeast Iowa, made this moody late-summer piece with dahlias, amaranth, celosia, hydrangea, dill, one garden rose and a mix of foraged and garden greens, kept to an intentionally muted, faded color range.

© Anna Hedges Photography

LAKEVILLE, MINNESOTA

Rachael Ackerman • Blue Sky Flower Farm

A Minnesota farm couple runs Blue Sky Flower Farm south of the Twin Cities. Among other outlets, they sell woody stems, perennials, annuals and vines to designers through the Twin Cities Flower Exchange, an all-local wholesale hub.

Hops and pumpkin lantern plant top their list of seasonal favorites.

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

Amanda Maurmann • Gnome Grown Flowers

One standout! Sometimes a single flower says everything about late summer.

This bunch of 'Apricot/Peach Mix' strawflowers, grown by a grower at Gnome Grown Flower Farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was photographed by a florist at Passionflower Design Studio, for the Michigan flower growers cooperative.

STOW, MASSACHUSETTS

Barbara Rietscha • Field & Vase by Stow Greenhouses (Retired)

A striking still life from a Massachusetts greenhouse florist lifts late-summer flowers to an art form.

She used all her fall favorites: dahlias, marigolds, celosia, delphinium, thistle, sweet Williamand mums.

A weathered animal skull adds a thoughtful note.

PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS

Debbie Bosworth • Dandelion House Flower Farm

A backyard cut flower farmer at Dandelion House Flower Farm in Plymouth, Massachusetts, celebrates late summer's bounty with this charming pair of arrangements of dahlias, amaranth, hydrangea, cosmos, sunflower, sedum and grasses.

She calls it "September Flourish."

OAK HILL, NEW YORK

Todd Carr & Carter Harrington • Hort & Pott

In New York's Catskills, two shop owners run Hort & Pott, a shop of handmade, vintage, botanical and unusual goods.

Late summer in one arrangement: the season's final blooms, with pods and pine added.

HOPEWELL, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA

Megan Balodis • Marshdale Farms

For a grower at Marshdale Farmsin Nova Scotia, the season is all about the bronze, burnished tones of amaranth, grouped into blocks of copper and burgundy.

WOODBURY, CONNECTICUT

Leslie Gamsjager • Leslie Gamsjager Flowers

A Connecticut florist at Leslie Gamsjager Flowers built this late-season design with sunflowers, dahlias, dilland hydrangea as focal flowers; alliums, snapdragons, celosias, and ageratum for height and filler; and frilly kale for deep green texture.

WHITTON, ARKANSAS

Jill Forrester • Whitton Farms

A fourth-generation flower farmer grows flowers and vegetables on 10 acres in Arkansas. At peak season she makes hundreds of bouquets, selling them at local markets in Arkansas and Tennessee and through orders on her website.

She loves vitex, a cut flower staple on her farm that thrives on neglect and draws bees and butterflies, and uses it as the spike element in this fresh birthday bouquet of dahlias, hydrangea, rudbeckia, zinnias, and celosia.

LILBURN, GEORGIA

Cathy Balke

A home gardener and flower lover in Georgia sent in the backyard ingredients she loves most this time of year:

dahlias, Persian shield, hosta and creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia). Purple and green is her favorite pairing.

ASTORIA, OREGON

Kathleen Barber • Erika's Fresh Flowers

A farmer, florist and photographeron the Oregon coast gathered her favorite zinnias of the year for this piece, and added statice and aster to celebrate September, her favorite month.

EUGENE, OREGON

Bethany Little • Charles Little & Co.

A couple who run an Oregon nursery and flower farm, Charles Little & Co. are known for the wide range of woody stems, perennials, annuals, vines and edibles they grow.

From time to time they turn designer too, as in this piece made for a nearby restaurant. The arrangement is late summer through and through, with limelight hydrangea, sage, artemisia, amaranth, celosia, dahlia, dusty millerand novelty pineapple lily (eucomis).

HERMISTON, OREGON

Kris Bennett • KRISanthemums

A grower at KRISanthemums in eastern Oregon handles color with confidence, pairing bright summer zinnias and dianthus 'Green Trick' with the dark seed heads of sunflowers and echinacea for this vivid late-summer bouquet.

FALL CITY, WASHINGTON

Tammy Myers • First & Bloom

A Washington floral designer at First & Bloom has built her brand on using only American-grown flowers, especially from local farmers who've become friends. This late-summer bouquet, made for a workshop, includes foraged vine maple, wine-colored ninebark, rudbeckia, hypericum, tansy, phlox 'Creme Brulée' and foraged grasses.

© Missy Palacol Photography

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Sue Nevler • Trustee, Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden

A trustee of Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden outside Seattle, and a keen gardener, put together this backyard bouquet of crocosmia, dahlias, viburnum, hydrangea and oregano 'Kent Beauty', the essence of the season.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Maura Whalen • Casablanca Floral

A studio florist at Casablanca Floral in Seattle often cuts from her own garden for commissions. Her late-summer palette mixes dahlias, zinniasand hollyhock with wine grapes and porcelain vine.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Sara Jane Camacho • Thatch Floral

A Seattle florist at Thatch Floral combines sunny single yellow dahlias with scented geranium, pearly everlastingand foraged golden raintree pods for a bright, buttery seasonal arrangement.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Sandy Figel • Verbena Floral

A Seattle florist at Verbena Floral makes cheerful cosmos the focal flowers of this seasonal compote, then builds on them with hydrangea, hops, nigella pods, dusty miller, ornamental grasses, and amaranth. Pink fall-blooming Japanese anemones finish it off!

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Leigh Grossman • Fiori Floral Design

The creative directorof a Seattle studio, Fiori Floral Design uses unusual seasonal ingredients in her formal centerpieces.

The first is a "texture bowl": phalaenopsis orchids, peony pods, succulents, foraged tree ivy and fresh contorted willow cut from the studio's garden, along with roses, blackberry, seeded eucalyptusand ming fern.

The second features blue and purple hydrangeas with succulents, monarda, eryngium, foraged bittersweet, rex begonia leaves from the studio garden, white heather and U.S.-grown phalaenopsis orchids.

WOODSIDE, CALIFORNIA

Katherine Glazier • Filoli

A floral design instructorat the public garden estate Filoli in California likes to use locally grown materials in her workshops.

Here she filled an urn to overflowing with lush late-summer ingredients: hops, digiplexis (a foxglove relative, Digitalis x Isoplexis), roses, scabiosa 'Black Knight', zinnias, eucalyptus, and panicum 'Frosted Explosion.'

GRATON, CALIFORNIA

Hedda Brorstrom • Full Bloom Flower Farm

A farmer-florist at Full Bloom Flower Farm grows organically in Sonoma County, and her designs are layered, detailed and full of character.

Two late-summer beauties: first, an unusual bouquet with cardoon flowers, crocosmia, echinops, delphinium, lotus pods, garden roses, strawflowerand succulents.

Second, an urn overflowing with 'Café au Lait' dahlias, 'Dara' daucus, foxglove, scabiosa, lisianthus, echinops, dusty miller, tuberose and 'Cherry Caramel' phlox.

Before you start mapping out next year, take a minute to enjoy everything the fifth season brings.

In Chinese philosophy, this is a time for centering and grounding yourself, building well-being as spring and summer give way to fall and winter.

Wherever you grow, when you plan for a big late-summer cut flower harvest, you'll find seed for many of these design favorites at Hensley's.